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Dale Jr's Sponsor Debate

I'm going to jump on this band wagon for a minute. A lot of people, The Diecast Dude and Marc are but a few among many others, are speculating about who Dale Jr's sponsor is going to be so I thought I'd chime in too.

 

Speculation has run wild with sponsorship ranging from Nike and Addias to some sort of beverage of the non-alcohol type. Current speculation of the beverage kind is Mountain Dew, but I think Pepsi would be a better choice. Here is why; they are already an associate sponsor for Hendrick's cars and they are a primary sponsor for Jeff Gordon whenever he races Busch and the odd Cup race (and I don't see that changing if they become Dale's primary sponsor) so the transition would be easy for the racing organization and Pepsi.

 

Also, even though Dale Jr couldn't officially be part of the Coca Cola Racing Family because of his beer sponsorship, he was indirectly associated with them due to the fact that the rest of the DEI were part of that Coke program as was Dale Sr. Also, Coke had sponsored Dale Jr in the past in some of his Busch races and they were an associate sponsor when he was racing Busch long before he became Bud's poster boy. So having a 'former' Coke sponsored driver, who is still somewhat associated with the brand would be a benefit for Pepsi to have.

 

Finally, we know that Mountain Dew is made by Pepsi (if you didn't you do now), but if you were to have a driver of Dale Jr's marketability then you would have him pimping your flagship product and not something else. Sure it would be alright for him to drive a Mountain Dew car from time to time, as well as any other Pepsi product for that matter, but you would definitely want him driving a Pepsi car most of the time.

 

So that's my 2 cents - let's see if I'm even close. Remember, if Pepsi signs on as primary sponsor, you heard it here first.