Earlier this morning, Richard Childress Racing and Sprint Cup Series points leader Kevin Harvick announced a multi-year deal with Budweiser to sponsor their #29 Chevrolet starting with 20 races (not including the Budweiser Shootout and Sprint All Star Showdown) in 2011. Also unveiled at the press conference in Welcome, NC, was the paint scheme (or should we say lack of a paint scheme?) Harvick will carry on his RCR Impalas.
Some would argue that the primary functions of a paint scheme are a.) to easily identify the car to fans and team spotters and b.) to advertise the primary sponsors who pay millions of dollars to have their logos all over the car. But fans and drivers alike enjoy having interesting and flashy designs, which in turn causes fans to want to buy diecasts and t-shirts. An interesting scheme tends to be more popular than a plain car, though there are certainly exceptions to the rule.
Anheuser-Busch has a long history in NASCAR. For over 25 years, they sponsored the NASCAR Busch (Grand National) Series, the junior league to NASCAR's top Cup Series. Its Busch brand sponsored David Green in the 1990s, and, for many years, was the sponsor of the pole award, until sister brand Budweiser took over in 1998 (though Busch remained the pole award sponsor in the Busch Series).
Budweiser began its association with what was then the NASCAR Winston Cup Series in 1983. At this time, car designs were generally pretty plain, and even the more out-there cars were tame by even today's standards. Budweiser opted for two different schemes throughout their relationship with Terry Labonte and Billy Hagan's team. One was a plain red car that would become the fairly standard scheme for the company, and another with a decent amount of white on the hood and roof.
In 1985, Budweiser left Hagan's team for Junior Johnson's operation, and had immediate success with drivers Darrell Waltrip and Neil Bonnett. The two cars shared a similar look at times, with a red roof and hood, white sides and a small amount of gold and blue trim, but at other times, Bonnett's car was all red. For the next few years, the scheme remained red and white, when Terry Labonte reunited with Budweiser, and Geoff Bodine joined the team after Labonte left. The all-red look later carried over from Bonnett's #12 to the #11. Bill Elliott also sported a solid red scheme, save a thin white stripe.
After Elliott's departure in the 1994/95 offseason to start his own team, Budweiser also left Junior Johnson for Hendrick Motorsports' #25 Chevrolet and driver Ken Schrader, bringing with them a completely red car. In the company's five seasons with HMS, Ricky Craven, Todd Bodine, Jack Sprague, Wally Dallenbach and Randy LaJoie also drove for the team. The only time this look changed between 1995 and 1999 was when the team changed the car number to #50 in 1998 to celebrate NASCAR's 50th Anniversary season.
Midway through the 1999 season, NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt announced that Budweiser would sponsor his son, reigning Busch Series Champion Dale Earnhardt, Jr., in five races in 1999 and the full schedule starting in 2000. This also marked the first time Budweiser added any color to their cars since the late 1980s. This was because, at the time, Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated had matching schemes for their cars, with the colors changed to match those of the team sponsors. This basic scheme stayed the same through the end of 2002, when, in a tribute to the late Earnhardt, Sr., DEI changed their striping to invoke the image of an "E" on one side of the car and a "3" on the other. This reduced the amount of black on the car, leaving the scheme mostly red again. This remained until after 2007.
That summer, Dale Jr. announced that he would leave his father's team for Hendrick Motorsports after the season, but Budweiser would not follow. Instead, they moved to Evernham Motorsports (now Richard Petty Motorsports) and driver Kasey Kahne. During the initial 2008 season, Kahne's car retained a touch of black at the bottom, but this disappeared the next season.
With the announcement of Budweiser's signing with Harvick at RCR, we see that the basic red look of the company will continue for the foreseeable future. Though rumors still persist that the car shown at this morning's press conference may not be the final look for the #29 (Shell Pennzoil had a much different car at its announcement than what made the track the next February), don't expect the scheme to change too much. You know what they say: "Old habits die hard."
