#29-Kevin Harvick likely won’t be wearing his Shell sponsorship logos quite so prominently this weekend at California Speedway. Harvick’s team has been asked to utilize logos representing the Pennzoil automotive lubricant part of the company more prominently instead of the dominant Shell logo associated with the company’s gasoline in an effort to play down any perceived competition with Sunoco, the official fuel of NASCAR. Sunoco has exclusive rights to the fuel category at a NASCAR track, and company officials raised the logo matter after Harvick won both the Busch and Nextel Cup series races wearing prominent Shell logos at Daytona International Speedway. As a result, Harvick will apparently be sporting smaller Shell logos at this weekend’s events at California Speedway. “Obviously we’ve got a lot of partners and constituencies in the garage area that are important to the entire industry, and when these things come up we want to work through them as best we can,” NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Thursday morning.(SceneDaily.com)(2-22-2007) UPDATE: #29-Kevin Harvick isn’t the only participant to have a new racing uniform for the Auto Club 500 today at California Speedway. His crew has new uniforms, too. The crew uniform, which had the Shell logo as the prominent display on the front and back of the uniform and “Shell” down the pant leg, now has the word “Pennzoil” on the front and back in addition to the Shell logo and now has Pennzoil written down the pant leg. The new uniform is similar to the new one of Harvick’s. According to NASCAR Vice President Steve O’Donnell, the Shell sponsorship is supposed to focus on the motor oil Pennzoil and not the gasoline so as not to interfere with official fuel supplier Sunoco’s marketing agreement. Shell received incredible exposure with Harvick’s Daytona 500 victory last week. NASCAR, which is responsible for enforcing Sunoco’s exclusivity deal, required the change in the Richard Childress Racing team’s uniforms as well as Harvick’s helmet.(SceneDaily.com)(2-26-2007)
