Tide’s Triumphant Return To Sprint Cup Racing

Tide hasn’t been a sponsor of a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team since they concluded the 2006 season on the hood and fenders of the No. 32 Chevrolet driven by Travis Kvapil. When the decals came off the car – which was folded into Michael Waltrip Racing’s fledgling effort for 2007 – it ended one of the most popular and successful runs for a sponsor in the sport’s history. The highlights, of course, were Darrell Waltrip’s 1989 Daytona 500 triumph and Ricky Rudd’s victory in the 1997 Brickyard 400.

Early Tuesday morning, Tide again won the Daytona 500. No the famous bright orange, yellow, and white Tide Ride wasn’t on track, but the fan-favorite detergent was put to good use, cleaning up hundreds of gallons of jet and diesel fuel that had burned across the surface in turn three after Juan Pablo Montoya’s, erm, incident with a jet dryer. The Tide worked like a charm, getting the surface squeaky clean – and likely smelling like an ocean breeze – thus allowing the final 40 laps of the Great American Race to be contested without issue.

The cleanup, with the Tide boxes shown clearly and Waltrip recounting a story of a past similar incident in which his then-sponsor saved the day, was worth plenty of free publicity. According to Twitter timelines, Tide’s popularity has shot up even further, with comments like “if it can clean jet fuel off a race track, it can get pizza sauce out of my whites!” and the like.

Here’s hoping the publicity and the huge fan reaction will be enough to inspire Proctor and Gamble to pony up the dollars and slap the Tide livery back on a race car where it belongs.

Related Blogs

RETROSPECTIVE>>RACING ON THE SANDS OF DAYTONA

Daytona International Speedway is one of the most historic and well known race tracks in motorsports history, and has been the home to NASCAR's most famous race since its opening 1959.

The history of racing at Daytona actually goes back longer than that though.

Much longer than that….(read more)

Related Blogs

Driver Profile >>> Corey Hosford & The KSport 350Z

I had the opportunity to meet driver Corey Hosford at SEMA this year, and ever since then I’ve wanted to feature him here.

 

First off, tell us a bit about yourself!

My name is Corey Hosford and I live in Gilbert, Arizona. I’ve been drifting for 10 months, and I suck at video games.

How did you first get into drifting?

Wow dude, when I first started racing cars about 12 years ago, I would always have fun sliding the cars around during practice or on a test day. I would literally just go out there and mess around. At this time I had no idea drifting was a sport, I just thought it was a fun way to get around a course. In 2002 a coworker of mine started competing in the Formula Drift series (Ryan Hampton) and that’s when I really started looking at the sport. At that time I just didn’t have the time to start a new sport and all the other forms of motorsports I was involved with didn’t allow me to compete somewhere else.

How did you get involved with KSport?

I heard Ksport was a local company based out of Gilbert, Arizona that has been involved with drifting and D1 for some time. I called up Ksport and asked if they were still involved with the sport or had any interest getting back in to it. So I set up a meeting with the owner of the company went to the Ksport warehouse.

The first meeting I had with Ksport was awesome! I walked in as a complete stranger, and I remember the owner probably thinking to himself, “who is this kid”. Of course I was super excited, laughing and telling dumb jokes. Now, I’m a very social person but the owner of Ksport is more of a straight cut let’s get to the point and down to business type of guy, so you can imagine how that went. The owner agreed to bring their newly LS1 swapped S13.5 out to the track for some shakedown runs which went really well, so here we are.

The end result is that we created an awesome relationship and everyone at Team Ksport and Fueled Racing are seriously some of the most knowledgeable people in the scene. I’m very fortunate to be working with all these guys.

Are you excited to move into a new Chassis?

Yes, for sure! This car is going to be completely new from top to bottom. It’s going to be a huge improvement from what we drove last year. The prior car supposedly had a “curse” on it from what all the locals in AZ said, and there were times where I felt like the curse was getting the best of us, but we always found a way to overcome it. So, to have the supposed rumor of the “curse” no longer with us is a sigh of relief!

 

Can you give us a breakdown of what all has gone into the new Chassis? 

I’m so stoked to drive this beast. We have so many great companies on board that put so much time in work in to this new car.

Motor – Chevy LSX – Powered by Fueled Racing (exact specs TBA)

Cage – FutureFAB

Suspension – Ksport Slide Kontrol Coilovers, Fueled Racing custom arms & rods

Wheels – WedSports Tc105n 18×9.5 & 18×10.5

Seat/Bracing – TBA

Brakes – Ksport BBK 14” 8 piston front and 14” 4 piston rear, Ksport Hydraulic hand brake

Dash – Aim Sport  MXL Pista. Suede wrapped OEM dash with Orange stitching

Body Kit – AIT Racing

Aero – APR Performance GT300 Series Carbon Fiber wing & Carbon Fiber front wind splitter

Paint – Ksport Orange, yes it’s an official color as of this year that is being sold BASF under their Carizzma Colors line up. Paintwork was done by Elite Automotive Finishes in Mesa, AZ.

Lights – Headlights and Taillights by ANZO USA

Tires – Falken RT615k

You’ve really made a strong showing as a rookie, how does it feel to have done so well so quickly?

This is a very common question and honestly, I often think to myself how I could have done better. I tend to always critique myself on how I can improve my driving or things I can change to get every ounce out of the car and myself.

To be a new driver to the sport and being on a new team, with a new car was definitely a learning curve, but as a new team we were surprisingly able to click real quick.  I seriously give a lot of our success to Ksport, Fueled Racing and the whole team that just made things happen.

Don’t get me wrong I was really excited to be the new guy nobody knew, who came out of nowhere and was able to pick up our Formula Drift license in less than 8 months. I love challenges!

Going in to Long Beach I’ll be an 11 month veteran to the sport of drifting if that makes any sense haha.

Got a day job?

My day job is at the infamous Bob Bondurant School of High performance driving as a driving Instructor. We teach anything from high performance driving, stunt driving, advanced road racing, executive protection, military, pretty much anything car related we teach. Another bonus is that I work with some of the most awesome drivers in the country including Darren Law, Johnny O’Connell, Bob Bondurant, Pete Miller, Andy Lee just to name a few. http://www.bondurant.com/

Who’s your favorite 90′s R&B artist?

R. Kelly hands down… Duh.

If you could have lunch with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?

Ayrton Senna and or Juan Manuel Fangio, these guys in my mind were two of the most bad ass drivers who ever walked the earth.

Aryton Senna – Turned in to a beast any time he hopped behind the wheel of any car that he drove.

Juan Manuel Fangio – He raced cars when they were dangerous. His driver suit when he raced Fomrula One was a Polo shirt and a leather helmet. Like a Boss!!

 Why do you have a Zombie on your car?

1) The most amazing thing about this sport compared to a lot of other forms of motorsports is that you have so much freedom of expression. As we were designing the new car we really wanted to do something completely out of the ordinary, and somehow the topic of blood hungry zombies came up.  Zombies are just raw; they go out there and do work! They are HUNGRY! It can relate in many ways.

2) Who doesn’t like hot zombie chicks with big boobies?

Fair enough! Let’s hear those shoutouts!

I want to thank everyone who has supported me in the past 10 months I have been involved with driting. First off I can’t thank the whole team at Ksport enough, Nick, Chris, Jade, Gage, Eric, and Becky. To the yoda of V8′s at Fueled Racing Todd and Amy. All of my amazing sponsors, APR, AIT, BASF, Aim sports, Elite Automotive, WedSports, Anzo Usa, Exedy, Falken tire, Huge thanks to Pat and Bob Bondurant, and to the many other sponsors to be announced . My Family Mom, Dad, Brian ,Casey, and Dustin. To Jay and E at RHW Performance Training for getting my ass in shape, Big shout out to all the amazing fans and local drivers in Arizona (See you all at Drift and Drags). All of you guys make this all possible and I hope you all are ready for a great 2012 Formula Drift Season……and Kyle Pope.

Visit Fueled Racing

Visit KSport and like them on Facebook!

Like Corey Hosford on Facebook while you’re there!