Primary Sponsorship Inventory Filled for RCR's Cup, Xfinity Teams
Heading into Sunday's 67th annual Daytona 500, Richard Childress Racing, a six-time NASCAR Cup Series championship-winning organization, has confirmed to Racing America On SI that the race team has completely filled the primary sponsorship inventory for all of its full-time cars in the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series for the 2025 season.
RCR has now moved on to working on primary sponsorship for a part-time "Open" entry No. 33 Chevrolet, which will compete in select NASCAR Cup Series events in 2025.
While unsponsored cars in the NASCAR Cup Series are very uncommon since the invention of the Charter system, even some of the biggest juggernaut teams in the sport have entered the season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway with several gaps in the primary sponsorship lineup in recent years.
Denny Hamlin's No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing entry is a prime example of this in 2025 as that organization lost key partners FedEx and Mavis Tire in the offseason, and has had a hard time filling in the gaps. The fact that RCR has had four full-time cars in two series with no primary sponsorship gaps since January is an incredible achievement.
"It's tremendous. It speaks volumes to everybody at RCR who works at it every day. I've only been with two teams, but I can say this group grinds as hard as anybody," said Mike Verlander, President of Richard Childress Racing in an exclusive interview. "I think Richard [Childress] does a good job of getting involved as well."
What this news amounts to is the culmination of a refreshed Richard Childress Racing team.
The team credits social media as a key component for the team's success in procuring primary sponsorship.
The team's two NASCAR Cup Series drivers Austin Dillon and Kyle Busch have an active presence on social media, and with that have built large followings between Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok, and each large following comes with high levels of engagement.
RCR's in-house production capabilities, which the team has expanded in recent years, have also helped the team land and renew sponsorship partners, according to Jason Golden, the team's Chief Revenue Officer.
Verlander, who was announced as the team's new President earlier this month, also indicated that Richard Childress Racing has spent some time recently discovering who they are, what they stand for, and who the team's most ardent fans are.
"What we've all heard, and not everyone wants to talk about, is our avid fan, our core fan at times feels like, 'Well, who is talking to me?' So we're going to scream at them this year that we're in Welcome, North Carolina," Verlander explained. "We're 400 blue-collar working-class people with grit under our nails. And we're going to represent the guy or lady in section 302, who gets up when it's dark, goes to work, comes home, and wants to watch NASCAR. That's who we are."
With the team's identity clearly defined, Richard Childress Racing has targeted brands that align with the team's image.
"Jason and his team have done a great job of finding those brands, who also want to talk to that customer, and that, to me, is nirvana," Verlander beamed. "I've been in places, where if [a company] called and said, 'I want five races,' [the team would say], 'Deal!' Every team is in that position, and always will be, but nirvana is lining up with brands that represent who we are because we have the same customer.
"You look at Bass Pro Shops, Zone Nicotine Pouches, Rebel Bourbon, and Cheddar's restaurants, they're talking to working-class, middle-class Americans that take pride in the country. And that is who we are, and we're not going to apologize about that. We're going to be proud of that."
Authentic partnerships have spoken to the team's fanbase, which has led to an expanded return on investment for the team's sponsors. In turn, RCR's strategic primary sponsorship approach has led Richard Childress Racing to expand relationships with its existing like-minded brands, which Verlander also revealed has allowed the team to have fewer primary sponsorship partners overall during the 2025 season.
"What Jason and his team have done, that I believe is really impressive, is that not only is every race accounted for, which is massive, but also we've been able to pare back some of the partners, meaning number of partners [has decreased]," Verlander explained.
Verlander, who admits that teams have to do what they have to do sometimes, is a firm believer that teams can benefit from a less is more mindset when it comes to securing primary sponsorship in the NASCAR Cup Series.
"I think the sport in general if we can get back, and this is maybe a pipe dream, to where you only have a handful of brands on each car, everybody wins," Verlander stated. "At the same point, as I've said, if you need 38 sponsors, then you're going to have 38 sponsors, but it comes back to relationships and service."
As Verlander notes, with fewer partners, the brands associated with each team feel like they are in a more exclusive club and become more synonymous with the team and its drivers. Additionally, it helps the drivers build equity with the partners, and for the fans, having fewer one-off paint schemes would make the cars more recognizable on track from week to week in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Verlander jokes that the only loser in being able to field cars with just a few brands each year would be firesuit manufacturers, as they wouldn't be producing 18 sets of uniforms for each team.
Richard Childress Racing's anchor partners for this season include Bass Pro Shops / Winchester for Austin Dillon and the No. 3 NASCAR Cup Series team, Zone Nicotine Pouches for Kyle Busch and the No. 8 NASCAR Cup Series team, Whelen Engineering for Jesse Love and the No. 2 NASCAR Xfinity Series team, and Bennett Transportation & Logistics for Austin Hill and the No. 21 NASCAR Xfinity Series team.
Aside from Winchester, all of the anchor partners are returning primary sponsorship brands for the team from the 2024 season. According to Golden, the team's relationships are expanding, and the brands involved are coming up with stronger activations, which will be announced throughout the season.
Richard Childress Racing's success in the primary sponsorship market comes following a season, where the team admittedly struggled to find results on the track. Pair that with the fact that RCR, unlike some teams in the NASCAR Cup Series, doesn't have the advantage of being able to leverage outside business interests with prospective sponsors, and Verlander feels it only echoes the sentiment that the organization's sales and marketing team have been doing everything in their power to bring value to the team's partners.
"I think it speaks volumes for the customer service that our sales and marketing team provide, the attention they put on partners, and the value they put on partners," Verlander explained. "I think it also goes to show Richard [Childress]' relationship and how accessible he is to a lot of these partners. He's in the office every day. There are days when Jason and I pull in [to the office] and Richard beat us [there]. That's never a good thing, by the way."
After Massive Competition Department Moves, Richard Childress Racing Looking to Improve On-Track Results in 2025
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season on-track was not up to the standards of Richard Childress Racing. As a result, the team has made a concerted effort to improve its competition department as it made sweeping organizational changes late last season and continued to make moves after the turn of the New Year.
Richard Boswell, who was Chase Briscoe's crew chief last season at Stewart-Haas Racing, was named as the new crew chief for Dillon and the No. 3 team in November, joining Randall Burnett, who returns as Busch's crew chief.
The team also added Johnny Klausmeier, another former Stewart-Haas Racing employee, to serve as the team's Technical Director, and he'll work alongside Keith Rodden, RCR's Vice President of Competition.
While RCR's sponsorship outlook is great now, Verlander knows the sky could be the limit if Richard Childress Racing could return to being a force in the battle for the NASCAR Cup Series championship.
"Like Coca-Cola, if their product didn't taste good, I don't care how well you market it to sell, at some point, it would catch up with you," Verlander said. "So, we're going to focus on our product this year, and we're going to get race cars better and give the guys cars they can go win with and be competitive with. Because if you can have every race accounted for after last year, think about what the future is when you're running well. Again, I keep saying the same words, but it's exciting to us. If we were a publicly traded company, you would be really bullish on us."
Verlander says the team will be unapologetic, but realistic as it works on improving the speed in its race cars and changing the perceptions attached to it after the 2024 campaign.
"[On] the outside looking in, in years past, maybe RCR wasn't on the level that others were. That's perception," Verlander admitted. "So, first, we have to stop the perception. And we've got to talk in proud manners. We're not going to apologize if we turn somebody. We're not going to apologize if our driver gets out and kicks the car and says something they shouldn't on Sunday. We're going to own who we are, we're going to focus back on the core product. These [Next Gen] cars allow you a lot more level footing. So, we're not going to chase the win on certain things, we're going to focus on what we need to be realistic."
Part of the realistic path to getting RCR back on top is not expecting Rome to be built in a day. Verlander says the path to get where RCR is looking to go has already been laid out by another team in the NASCAR Cup Series garage.
"When you look at RFK Racing, they've done it the best in my opinion. We're going to go from [bottom], to [middle], to [top]. It's a three-to-four-year plan. Too many times you try to go from [bottom] to [top], and you're always lost," Verlander notes. "This year, [our] cars need to win, but we need to unload most weekends and be in the right ballpark. In 2026, we're going to unload every week and be in the ballpark. In '27, we're going to unload and run top-three every week.
"That all makes this world, the commercial side, all the conversations are easier when you're picking up the phone and talking about race wins, and deep runs in the Playoffs, and being relevant outside of the relationship. And these guys, maybe they have, maybe they haven't seen it, but there is a renewed focus on our core product, and our core product is fast race cars."
Richard Childress Racing got its 2025 season started off on the right foot on Saturday night as Jesse Love took home his second career NASCAR Xfinity Series win in the United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway.
Now, the team will look to make it a clean weekend sweep in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500. Austin Dillon will roll from the starting grid in the 15th position in the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops / Winchester Chevrolet, and Kyle Busch will kick off his season from the 21st starting spot in the No. 8 Zone Nicotine Pouches Chevrolet.
RELATED: 2025 Daytona 500 Starting Lineup
The Daytona 500 will take place on Sunday, February 16, and will be televised by FOX. Due to potential inclement weather, NASCAR bumped the start time of the race up by an hour, so, FOX's coverage will kick off at 1:30 PM ET, and the green flag is expected to start the race at 2:00 PM ET.
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.