Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
OK, this is just speculation, but hear me out … this sort of makes sense. We all know that Coors has pulled its sponsorship of Coors Light from Ganasi/Sabates Racing for next year, and can you blame them? The Coors car has had a less than steller success rate since Sterling Marlin drove it, he even was in contention for the Championship - until he broke his neck in a crash, and that was the beginning of the decline for the Coors car.
It is strongly believed that the ‘up-for-grabs-sponsorship’ of Budweiser has signed with Evernham Motorsports and have Kasey Kahne as the new Bud Beer Bandit. This announcement should come Tuesday (if I remember correctly). So where can Coors go and get a significantly higher profile? Richard Childress Racing.
Don’t see it? I do. RCR is a good choice for Coors. AT&T is leaving the 31 car at the end of the year. Sure they have been granted a reprieve until the end of the year, but realistically they are done in Cup as a sponsor until Nextel/Sprint are done as the ‘official’ sponsor of NASCAR.
With AT&T gone that leaves the door open for any sponsor to get on the side of the resurgent RCR stable 31 car driven by perennial nice guy Jeff Burton. Can you think of a better situation for Coors right now? Not really.
Remember, Coors Light caters not only to the younger, slightly more health conscious, crowd as much as it caters to the fast approaching middle age guy, who is starting to count calories a little more than he used to, and Jeff Burton fits the mold on both counts. He isn’t too old to be classed as middle aged, yet he isn’t young enough not to identify with the middle age crowd, and he is health conscious too.
RCR has had a fairly successful track record over the years (except for the Lowes thing) and will get the Coors car significantly more air time during the races by having cars that can compete at the front of the pack on any given Sunday, as well as be Chase contenders at the end of the season. These are things that the Coors car has not seen a lot of in recent years and would be appealing to them.
So, have I convinced you, or have I just wasted a post on something that just does not stand a chance of seeing the light of day? Let me know.
