INDIANAPOLIS -- All good things must come to an end, evident by the more than decade-long partnership between Matt Kenseth and sponsor DeWalt.

Negotiations between the company and race team stalled and the announcement was made that the power toolmaker would leave at the end of this season.

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It's going to be weird to not be in a yellow and black car with DeWalt on the side.

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MATT KENSETH

Kenseth, who won the Daytona 500 just five months ago, said it's merely a "sign of the times.

"The tool business obviously is very weak," he said. "When construction is that weak, the tool business is going to be weak and we just couldn't make it all happen ... it's certainly disappointing we couldn't figure out how to make all of that work and keep it all together somehow."

During the partnership, the only sponsor Kenseth has ever had in his Cup Series career, the driver of the No. 17 Ford and his crew have won the 2000 Rookie of the Year, two Pit Crew championships and the '03 series championship, and have qualified for the Chase every year since its inception in '04.

Still, if the funds are not there one of the first areas to face cuts is the sports marketing budget and Kenseth isn't the only one to lose a sponsor this season amidst the economic downturn, but he is the first championship driver to do so.

Roush Fenway Racing president Geoff Smith said together both the team and company found great success but couldn't overcome the economic decline in the construction industry, so DeWalt's decision to leave wasn't a surprise.

Smith said the team is talking to several companies interested in sponsoring the car next season and beyond.

Kenseth said DeWalt was looking to sell some of the races this season and knew the company needed help in '10. If it came back, he said it wasn't going to be for a full season.

But knowing DeWalt could leave, Kenseth said, hasn't made the news any easier to accept.

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"It's not a huge surprise, but I guess still a surprise because we've been together so long. I think hopefully when fans think of me they think of DeWalt and vice versa, so we've been together for a long time and it's going to be weird to not be in a yellow and black car with DeWalt on the side," he said.

Since Kenseth's back-to-back wins at the start of the season, his performance has slipped but it's an organization-wide issue. That said, Kenseth, who is barely hanging on to the 12th spot in the point standings heading into Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, is aware of how results can affect the teams' effort attracting new sponsors for next season.

"We try as hard as we can try every week and we bring our best stuff every week," he said. "Pressure isn't the right word, but there's added concern. When the whole economy is like this and you see a lot of different sponsors, at least from what I've seen, not be in the sport anymore and not be around ... that always concerns me.

"But you're only as good as your last race and we sucked our last race, so we've got to go here and try to get a good finish and try to run good and perform at the level we know we're capable of doing."

The sponsor hunt for the No. 17 team has been under way for several weeks prior to the DeWalt announcement and when a new partner is signed, it may be an arrangement similar to what Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing has put together where multiple companies are on the car.

"I would expect that ... if you look at it I don't know that there's a car in the series, besides Kurt Busch is the only one I can think of off hand that runs the same sponsor all year," said Kenseth, who has driven the primary paint schemes of Carhartt, USG Sheetrock and R+L Carriers this season. "Even Jeff Gordon with DuPont doesn't run just that scheme anymore. They all have help to make it happen and I think that's sort of the sign of the times."