Hooters signs sponsorship deal with Brett Bodine

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Hooters Restaurants, which won the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup championship with the late Alan Kulwicki, has signed a sponsorship deal for the balance of the 2002 season with Brett Bodine Racing.

Hooters of America chairman Bob Brooks will sponsor Brett Bodine's No. 11 Ford for no less than 26 of the remaining 31 races on the schedule and will also back a second car out of the BBR shops in five races for Kirk Shelmerdine using the Naturally Fresh brand of his Eastern Foods company.

			Brett Bodine

Bodine's team has the option of selling the remaining five races to another primary sponsor, but a team spokesperson said Hooters might opt to be on the car for those events as well. However, the deal amounted to salvation for Bodine, who started the season with only some faithful associate sponsors in place.

He had gone so far as telling his team members that the number of races they might run could be numbered.

“Now, as an owner and a driver, I can focus more on the driving side and just try to get this race team going back in a positive direction,” Bodine said. “We’ve been on a downhill slide since the end of last season -- but having Mr. Brooks and Hooters Restaurants, Naturally Fresh and Jackaroo Sauces coming on board is going to make our program whole again. Now we’re looking to start building it back up.”

Brooks has maintained some degree of involvement in motorsports since the early 1990s. He suffered a huge personal and professional loss in April 1993 when Kulwicki, Brooks’ son Mark, Dan Duncan and pilot Charlie Campbell were killed in the crash of a private jet while traveling to Bristol Motor Speedway, the site of this weekend’s Winston Cup Food City 500.

Brooks never strayed far from an involvement in motorsports, however. His company is involved in track ownership and the operation of the United Speed Alliance Racing’s Hooters ProCup Series for stock cars similar to the NASCAR Busch Series.

At the beginning of this season, Hooters sponsored the No. 80 Hover Motorsports Ford that Shelmerdine, the former crew chief for four of the late Dale Earnhardt’s championship seasons, tried to qualify for the Daytona 500.

After Speedweeks 2002 at Daytona, Brooks indicated he was interested in possibly resuming his involvement in Winston Cup racing, at the very least as a sponsor and possibly as a team owner.

Bodine’s associate sponsorship programs with Wells Fargo Financial, Timberland Pro, TEC Graphics and Express Services Inc. all will continue.

Doug Richert, who joined Bodine at the season’s second race, at North Carolina Speedway, working in the crew chief’s role as a “consultant,” will continue in that position at Bristol as Bodine weighs his options.