Tony Stewart doesn’t necessarily equate America’s financial crisis with the fact that he hasn’t yet secured full sponsorship on teammate Ryan Newman’s No. 39 Chevy for next year’s launching of Stewart-Haas Racing.
He thinks the bigger problem was the delay in getting Newman in the fold.
“Obviously, we wished we could’ve announced Ryan coming on board two or three months earlier and got that little bit of a head start trying to secure sponsorship for it,” Stewart said.
That said, when Stewart announced in October the deal naming the U.S. Army as sponsor for 22 points races on the No. 39, he added that he was close to signing another company to fill out the schedule. Two months later, he’s still looking.
“This week we’ve got a meeting with a potential sponsor to fill the rest of those races,” Stewart said. “So, even with the economy the way it is, there are still companies out there that are—people aren’t going to stop advertising. They’re not going to shut down their marketing programs.”
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