It’s just another way to draw in sponsorship and helps the business as a whole. Clearly, the GMAC affiliate or the small business that landed on Edwards’ car had no means on their own to afford that kind of exposure.

But with a chance to appear on a Nextel Cup car (and for a car that runs for one of Cup’s top teams at that), that strengthens the relationship between the corporate headquarters and its affiliates or satellite offices.

It may not make a whole lot of sense from a fan’s perspective – after all, when are you going to patronize a small business in Fort Worth? – but it does in business sense. Now, that small business owner will be pretty loyal to the megacompany that he’s affiliated with.

Sponsorship must make sense for a company, otherwise it would find elsewhere to spend its millions. Sometimes teams have to be creative to make the sponsorship package attractive enough for companies; remember, it wasn’t long ago that sponsors started splitting costs – one outfit is the primary sponsor for 20 races, the other for 16 or whatever the case may be. Best Buy sponsors the No. 66 and Jeff Green, and in more than one race has featured products that one can buy at Best Buy – SanDisk and Windows products to be precise.

Vickers’ car this weekend is another example of that creativity.

Such is the NASCAR world we live in.

Gordon — hit with a double whammy because he’s the driver and owner — was fined $15,000 and docked 50 driver points and 50 owner points. Neither will have a great impact on his spot in the standings.
On Sunday, NASCAR called TV replays inconclusive, but promised to investigate the matter. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that a highly-respected driver, Jeff Burton, jumped up and down and screamed about the injustice that Gordon’s stunt caused. When a normally calm guy like Burton gets that mad, it should make NASCAR sit up and take notice. And I’m glad that it did.
• ROOKIE DAVID RAGAN has been approved to try to make this weekend’s Cup race in Texas. Hopefully that chat with Tony Stewart in Atlanta has done some good.
There were some hard lessons learned at Dover and New Hampshire. Perhaps Ragan — if he makes the race — will prove he took the lessons and the chat to heart.
But Texas won’t be easy. It’s a much faster track than Dover and New Hampshire, and a pretty quick one at that. Kasey Kahne won the pole there in late March with a speed of more than 190 mph. So it’s only a little slower than Atlanta, where Ragan was not approved.
He’s got his work cut out for him.
• IF YOU CATCH our sports page tomorrow (or today if you read this on Thursday), you’ll see the dominant package about Occoquan’s Jim Yates, a driver in the NHRA’s Pro Stock series — a story I promised some time ago.
It’s a fascinating look into the business side of racing, as Yates finishes out the season and prepares to join Duce Staley’s Catch 22 Motorsports next year.
It has a NASCAR tangent to it, too, since Catch 22 is looking for sponsorship. But the man in charge of looking for sponsorship marveled at how successful NASCAR’s marketing has been. He said that he can expect companies with a certain amount of money will head to NASCAR.
And when they go there? “They don’t come back,” he said.
• NOT RACING RELATED, but kinda cool anyway. I got a shout-out from the folks at the Uniwatch Blog after noticing a strange phenomenon on Friday night.
At the Hylton-Woodbridge football game, Woodbridge painted its yardlines black in celebration of Homecoming.
I’ve played football from when I was 10, through high school and four years of Division III ball. After that, I’ve covered football games for the better part of a decade.
And black yardlines are something I’ve not ever seen.
I thought it might be interesting, so I snapped a pic with my camera phone and sent it to the Uni-watch. He Photoshopped it a bit to improve the color, and there you have it.
• NO BLOG THURSDAY, taking the day off.