Pennzoil to become title sponsor of Las Vegas’ spring NASCAR race
In a week of major announcements involving Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the one made between NASCAR practice sessions Friday unquestionably was the slickest.
Effective 2018, the spring Cup Series race at LVMS will be known as the Pennzoil 400.
“I just want to mention that my favorite color is yellow,” said LVMS president Chris Powell, who was joined by Shell Lubricants Americas vice president of marketing Rusty Barron (black and yellow shirt) and Pennzoil-sponsored Cup Series driver Joey Logano (bright yellow driving suit) in making the announcement.
Financial terms of the multiyear agreement were not disclosed. Pennzoil will replace Kobalt Tools and Lowe’s Home Improvement, which has served as title sponsor for the past seven years.
“You want to sponsor the fall race, too?” Powell asked Barron.
It was announced Wednesday that LVMS also will host a fall Cup Series playoff race in 2018. Both events will be triple-headers with the Truck and Xfinity Series.
TALL ASSIGNMENT
As the Cup Series cars hit the track for practice Friday, the TV feed showed a comical scene in the pits. Pit road reporter Jamie Little, who went to high school at Green Valley, was doing her best to interview Dikembe Mutombo, who went to college at Georgetown.
Though Little is tall, she was having trouble fronting Mutombo, who stands 7 feet 2 inches and was an eight-time NBA all-star.
The big man was hanging out with Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick, whose No. 4 Ford this weekend is sponsored by Mobil 1, for whom Mutombo is a spokesman. They will star in an upcoming marketing campaign called the “Tremendously Odd Couple.”
It was hard to hear the conversation over the roar of the engines, but here is what Mutombo said at the unveiling of the car Thursday at the MGM Grand: “I don’t know what (the drivers) eat in the morning to go around more than 100, 200 times. I cannot do that — I would get dizzy and collapse.”
Brendan Gaughan, who will make his 500th NASCAR start in Saturday’s Boyd Gaming 300 Xfinity Series race, also played a little basketball at Georgetown.
But it was decided in an informal poll among NASCAR media that if a hoop were set up on the pit road for a game of one-on-one between the former Hoyas, Mutombo probably would win. TWITTEREMBED
TELLTALE SIGN
Another way you can tell NASCAR is in town, even when the engines go silent: People in the media center keep asking how Davidson fared against Dayton in the Atlantic 10 quarterfinals.
Follow all of our NASCAR coverage online at reviewjournal.com/NASCAR.
Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.
PENNZOIL POWER
The Pennzoil brand, which Friday entered into a multi-year agreement to sponsor the spring NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, has a long history of sponsoring some of auto racing’s most successful drivers:
NASCAR
— Joey Logano
— Steve Park
INDYCAR
— Rick Mears
— Al Unser
— Johnny Rutherford
— Sam Hornish
— Helio Castroneves
NHRA
— Eddie Hill
