I wanted to make sure and say Thank You to our sponsors this month. Without them there would be no articles here for you to enjoy, so please visit these great sponsors.

eBay Check out the Daily Deals on eBay

GoDaddy Register a domain name or set up a website

Automotive.com Shop for a car or apply for a car loan

Visa is the Official Card of NASCAR – and they’ve rolled out this new Black Card just in time for the Daytona 500.

American Express has a black card too – but they don’t sponsor anything in NASCAR so I never bothered to apply for one. I think it’s important to support businesses that support NASCAR, that’s why I use Visa. This new Visa Black Card has some pretty nice benefits too:

• Limited Membership

• 24-Hour Concierge Service

• Exclusive Rewards Program

• Luxury Gifts

• Patent Pending Carbon Card

It’s a heavy black carbon card designed especially for Visa. The card gives airfare rewards that let you redeem points for airline tickets with no blackout dates. You can also get 1% cash back on all purchases.

If you don’t fly much you can also redeem your points for gift cards at stores and restaurants. The card also is good for points you can use on rental cars and hotel stays.

Now I’m not saying you need to blindly support all NASCAR sponsors, but when you’ve got a choice between two products and the prices and benefits are about the same it would help if you could choose the company that supports NASCAR racing.

The same goes for when you are choosing an item that sponsors your favorite driver versus one that sponsors a driver you may not like so well.

Visa, The Official Card of NASCAR

NASCAR Sponsorship Available – on eBay. No, Really!

More Stuff I Found on eBay

You can find all sorts of cool – and sometimes unusual – things on eBay. But I never expected to find this. A sponsorship opportunity of J.J. Yeley in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

It could be yours for a cool $12 million!

The sponsorship comes with some nice perks, too.

Pit passes for you and your friends and business associates.

In-person driver appearances by Yeley.

Your name or logo on the race car, driver and crew uniforms, and team hauler.

So if you always wanted to sponsor a race car, here’s your chance.

You can see the eBay listing here.

Even Dale Jr Needs A Sponsor

You know times are hard when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Rick Hendrick can’t find a sponsor. The United States Navy has announced they’re leaving Junior’s Nationwide team.

Last year Junior and Hendrick announced they were merging their Nationwide series programs – and would operate the No. 88 and No. 5 cars out of Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports shop.

Now the operation is scaling back. People at JR Motorsports are losing their jobs, and expenses are being slashed.

“We’ve been working aggressively to secure funding to continue with two teams in the NASCAR Nationwide Series,” said Kelley Earnhardt, General Manager of JR Motorsports.

“The economic climate is difficult, as everyone is aware, and that is affecting every company’s ability to spend. The 2008 season will be ending in less than three weeks, and preparations for next season are already underway.”

“We do not anticipate getting the funding required to field two teams after the end of this season, and we need to make adjustments now to prepare JR Motorsports accordingly. We are reducing our workforce and budgets to comply with a new plan for 2009, which at the present time is to field the #88 team full-time with driver Brad Keselowski and the #5 team on a limited basis with a select group of drivers.”

JR Motorsports isn’t alone. Other big name teams are also having a hard time attracting sponsors.

Dale Earnhardt, Inc. has a sponsor locked up for only one of their four teams – Martin Truex, Jr.’s job is safe, with Bass Pro Shops backing him. Regan Smith and Aric Almirola are still without sponsors for 2009 – with no word yet if anyone will replace Paul Menard in the No. 15 car after he bolted from DEI taking his sponsor with him.

Bam Racing has suspended operation of the No. 49 car while it searches for sponsorship.

Yates Racing has operated most of this year either without sponsors, or with a race to race deal with a handful of smaller sponsors. In 2009 they will have full sponsorship from Menards with Paul Menard behind the wheel. No word on the other two cars of David Gilliland and Travis Kvapil.

Michael Waltrip Racing has lost UPS as a sponsor. The delivery company is headed to Roush Racing in 2009 for David Ragan.

Even NASCAR itself has had sponsorship issues. It took longer than expected to find a sponsor to replace Craftsman in the Truck Series – Camping World finally came aboard at the last minute.

Race teams can only operate out of their own pocket for so long.

If this continues we won’t be talking about the top 35 rule much longer. Instead we’ll be talking about less than full fields and start and park drivers.

It’s the economy – and NASCAR is suffering along with everyone else.

Dale Earnhardt Jr Superstore

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