Haas-Carter finds a sponsor for six races

CONCORD, N.C. -- For Rich Lalley and his coworkers, it was time to Discover that which lies on the Winston Cup landscape.

Lalley, vice president of advertising for Discover Card, announced on Sunday his company's alignment with Haas-Carter Motorsports. During the six-race partnership, which begins next weekend at Dover International Speedway, a black and orange No. 26 Ford will carry the Discover Card logo.

Todd Bodine will drive the car in all six events, and will be crew chiefed by Donnie Wingo. After Dover, the team will compete at Pocono, Michigan, Sears Point and Daytona before concluding at Chicagoland on July 14th.

"Right now it's for six weeks," said Rich Lalley, Discover vice president of advertising. "The rest of the year will take care of itself. This is our first taste of motorsports, and we have a lot of NASCAR fans. But we've never delved into this before. It's prudent to take it slow. Talk to us in five weeks."

Haas-Carter has suffered through a tumultuous 2002 campaign. Just prior to the season-opener at Daytona, the primary sponsor on both Haas-Carter Fords, Kmart Corp., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

They then pulled sponsorship from both machines after the Subway 400 at Rockingham. The following week at Las Vegas, Bodine earned the pole in a blue, unsponsored car.

"All of that is behind us," Haas said. "We're looking forward to the future, to building a relationship between Discover and Haas-Carter. "We're all anxious to get back to work. I'm so glad Todd's back with us. I have the highest regard for him. He got a bad deal earlier in the year."

After the No. 66 team ceased operation, Bodine departed to drive the No. 92 Herzog-Jackson Chevrolet in the Busch Series. Nemechek entered a handful of Winston Cup events in the unsponsored No. 26 before signing with Hendrick Motorsports to drive the No. 25 Chevy two weeks ago.

Due to his commitments with the No. 92 Busch team, Bodine will be forced to miss qualifying at Pocono and Michigan. Hence, his older brother, Geoffrey will qualify the Winston Cup machine.

"Travis has done something I'm very happy with, he hired my oldest brother to qualify the Cup car for us in those two races," Todd Bodine said. "One thing, when the bad situation happened, Carl and Travis understood that I needed to have a job and to go in circles.

"They allowed the Herzogs to have the advantage, so if there was a conflicting race, they'd have me for the conflicting part of it."

The No. 26 team isn't the only NASCAR-related sponsorship for Discover, either. Lalley said that Discover will have in-car cameras for each of the six events, and that new commercials will air during races on the FOX and NBC networks beginning June 2.

Also, Discover Card will be the title sponsor for NBC/TNT prerace shows starting July 14.