CARROLLTON, Ky. — Halfway into her first season with Nature’s Bakery’s backing, Danica Patrick already has run the gamut of sponsorship appearance variety. Yoga with the media, rock-climbing, zip-lining — Patrick already has checked all of those boxes.
Her most recent sponsor obligation Thursday morning was a mix of something familiar and something different. Before a traditional autograph session with a line of fans at a Kroger store just a 15-minute drive from Kentucky Speedway, Patrick went cart-to-cart in challenging local dignitaries — a tourism director, a local Baptist pastor and an overall-clad county judge executive among them — to a grocery race through the aisles.
“No, I’ve never done this before. But again, I watched ‘Supermarket Sweep’ when I was a kid,” Patrick said of the long-running grocery game show, making a statement analogous to Cole Trickle proving himself early on in “Days of Thunder” because he learned from watching NASCAR on TV.
“We continue as a group, between Nature’s Bakery and all the people involved, to make every event just a little bit unique,” Patrick said.
So it’s gone for the 34-year-old and the Nevada-based maker of health-conscious snack foods and fig bars, which signed on as primary sponsor of Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 10 Chevrolet for 28 of 38 Sprint Cup Series races (including two non-points events). That announcement last August dovetailed with news of a contract extension that kept Patrick in SHR’s four-driver fold.
Nature’s Bakery has served as Patrick’s primary sponsor in 13 of 17 races so far this year, and the business’ now-familiar pale blue and white colors will be on display this weekend for Saturday’s Quaker State 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM). It’s been a full-fledged, both-feet jump for company founder Dave Marson, who said that Nature’s Bakery’s overall sales had grown more than 50 percent since it entered into a partnership with Patrick and Stewart-Haas.
“Even better than we ever thought,” Marson said, touting Patrick’s natural tie-ins to the company’s ideals. “… She’s really into an active, healthy lifestyle. She lives it, so it’s not forced. It’s very authentic. So, very easy to promote our brand through her at any venue that we choose because we align really, really well.”
The location for Thursday’s appearance was also a natural fit. Marson said Kroger, which also partners with JTG Daugherty Racing’s No. 47 team and driver AJ Allmendinger, was one of Nature’s Bakery’s earliest supporters. Its products are now sold in every store operated by the supermarket chain, which is based in nearby Cincinnati.
“Every time I hear about expected projections for the year and how it’s gone, it’s exceeded that,” said Patrick, who helped present a $1,000 donation from the store to the Carroll County Food Bank. “I have to imagine that the program is working. I know that they were already on an upward trajectory, but my goal for Nature’s Bakery was to exceed their expectations and be blown away by how it’s gone. From everything I understand, it’s going really well and all I know is I see Nature’s Bakery fig bars everywhere.”
Though the business relationship has flourished, Patrick is still seeking the proverbial express lane to on-track growth in 2016. She’s mired in 26th in the Sprint Cup drivers’ standings, with eight laps led and no top-10 finishes.
Meanwhile, her Stewart-Haas teammates — points leader Kevin Harvick , Kurt Busch and team co-owner Tony Stewart — have all secured victories this season, virtually paving their way into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs. Patrick said she doesn’t view the disparity as a pressure-building negative, but that she can benefit from the organization’s overarching strength.
“For the health of the team, it’s great to have cars that have wins that are in the Chase. I know that’s just a great thing overall,” Patrick said. “Kevin and Kurt won last year and it’s Tony’s last year. I want to see him do well like so many others; I was so happy for him at Sonoma. But for me, it’s only really an upside.
“The fact that all your teammates win, there’s potential sitting there. We’ve got to figure it out and you just never know when that day could come. I feel like you just have to be ready and I don’t know when that day is going to come. I don’t feel confident enough in how it’s gone that we’ve been so fast that the win’s around the corner, but you just never know what can happen. There are all kinds of things that can happen in a race, and someday you might show up like it’s happened to me over the last couple of years where you’re just good and that might be the day, so you have to be ready and you have to be focused.”
By his own admission, Marson said he’s still learning the racing end of things halfway home through the first season of their partnership. While he said he’d love to have Patrick’s No. 10 among SHR’s Chase-eligible roster, the performance thus far hasn’t detracted from the sponsorship’s boon.
“We can use her and her popularity and what she believes in with our brand,” Marson said. “Do we want her to be better in the race car? If you’re competitive, anybody wants to be. You look at the challenges within a race team, Stewart-Haas Racing is looking at it and saying how can we get her up there. She’s looking at it, she’s very driven, so they’ll do their work to become more competitive but it doesn’t really affect us from a branding side.”