Some say heritage is everything and that can ring very true to a brand that has a tremendous lineage in motorsports. Shell is excited to unveil a commemorative paint scheme to run in the 2016 Bojangle’s Southern 500 that celebrates its first NASCAR primary livery. Shell participated in the 2015 festivities with a paint scheme on the #22 Team Penske Ford driven by Joey Logano that mimicked a LeMans-winning Porsche piloted by Mario Andretti in the 1980s. The car also carried Shell branding from the 1950s era to coincide with the founding of Darlington Raceway. Shell, a player in motorsport technology around the world for over 80 years, was relatively new to NASCAR when the company first became a primary sponsor in the mid-1990s. The company is bringing back its first NASCAR paint scheme to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its first win with 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion, Bobby Labonte, who piloted the #44 Shell Monte Carlo to its first NASCAR victory in 1996 at Nashville Speedway in what is now the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Labonte owned the car himself before bringing the Shell sponsorship to Joe Gibbs Racing where he competed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the then Busch Series. Ironically, Labonte drove the same paint scheme to victory lane at the ‘Track Too Tough To Tame’ in his final win for Shell in 1998. The Darlington scheme that Logano will carry on his #22 Shell-Pennzoil Fusion ran a number of races in the old Busch Series through the mid to late 1990s. The Darlington ‘throwback’ Shell paint scheme is actually one of three commemorative paint schemes that Shell and Pennzoil will debut in 2016 to celebrate their U.S. motorsports legacy.(Shell Pennzoil), see an image of the car on the #22 team paint schemes page.
