Shell sponsorship fuels new era for RCR's 29 (cont'd)

"Getting back into NASCAR is very exciting for us," Hofmeister said. "Michael Schumacher and Ferrari have been tremendous partners for Shell in Formula One, and while F1 is extremely popular and we've gotten great brand mileage out of that association, it doesn't get the attention in the United States that it gets elsewhere. This opportunity with RCR is really the best of both worlds for us, to have F1 all over the rest of the world and NASCAR in the United States."

Shell has 13,000 retail locations across America, and part of the company's sponsorship of RCR is the branding of the 29 car and Harvick at every one of them.

"Currently, if you stop in any of the 13,000 Shell stations in the U.S., you'll see the image of NASCAR, the 29 car and Kevin Harvick present for everyone to see," Hofmeister said.

"Six million people a day go to Shell, as best we can count, and those 6 million people have the chance to look at that image, and we sell gasoline in just about every state."

There's also a gas card promotion surrounding the No. 29 team.

"We're off and running with our gas card, which has the 29 car and the Shell and Pennzoil logo right there in the middle of it," Hofmeister said. "We're at 3 million and counting on those gas cards, and this means that somebody has a free tank of gas, or a partial tank of gas, and when they get it, the 29 car is staring them right in the eye."

That kind of exposure already, before ever turning a wheel in competition, is why NASCAR is such a draw for major corporations.

While Shell is keen on the marketing aspects of NASCAR, there's also the sense that it's a test bed for lubricants, which is a major component of Shell's overall business.

"Many people think we're just gas and oil, but when it comes to NASCAR, we are nanotechnologists," Hofmeister said. "We are getting right down to the molecular level of what is in the lubricant and the additives that are part of the lubricant that enable this molecular interaction to be on the leading edge.

"This is a process of sustained experimentation, and there's not a more difficult circumstance under which you're testing your molecules than NASCAR racing, with the sustained temperatures and stress."

Childress, who recently spent more than $2 million to upgrade his company's measuring technology, is banking on that technology partnership as well.

"We have 27 engineers at RCR and more than 400 employees," he said. "Technology is a very expensive business. We just spent $2 million on measuring equipment, and we are already working with their development engineers on lubricants.

"Things have changed a lot since I started my career in that $20 racecar."

Asked what his plans were for the upcoming Speedweeks marathon at Daytona, Hofmeister put it this way: "I want to meet and greet as many people as I can, and win the race."

That's sponsorship in a nutshell.