Quaker City Castings boosts NASCAR team sponsorship

By LARRY SHIELDS
SALEM — The associate sponsorship Quaker City Castings has with Donnie Neuenberger Racing (DNR) will be elevated to a primary sponsorship starting with the July Nationwide Series race at Daytona, Neuenberger said Wednesday.

The part-time driver in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series (formerly Busch Series) is scheduled for several stops in Salem during the third annual Steel Valley Super Nationals that begins with a kick-off cruise at the Dunkin’ Donut store on the east end of Salem from 6 to 9 p.m. today.

With 182 points, Neuenberger currently sits in 69th place (of 107) in series points and is ahead of well-known drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Scott Pruett, Adrian Fernandez, Martin Truex, Kirk Shelmerdine and Reed Sorenson, through 16 events.

Neuenberger, 45, has three Nationwide starts this year and is in his seventh season in the series. Last month at Dover, he finished 34th after running 43 laps driving a Ford Fusion. “The car felt good but we never got it handling,” he said.

In April at Talladega Superspeedway, Neuenberger started 39th and finished 14th in the Aaron’s (auto parts) 312, completing 116 of 117 laps.

The top-15 finish was Neuenberger’s best ever in NASCAR’s popular second-tier series.

Neuenberger expects to make at least four more starts this year at Michigan, Dover (his home track), Homestead, Fla., and possibly at Texas or the fall race at Bristol.

“It looks like we’ll definitely be able to run four races,” he said of the primary sponsorship provided by Quaker City Castings.

Company president, Joe Korff was a “great promoter,” he said, adding he appreciated the “great opportunity” to race for the Quaker City Castings.

Sponsorships cover costs and Neuenberger said that today that means keeping an 18-wheeler and crew of 12 on the move.

He explained that NASCAR limits Nationwide cars to six sets of tires per weekend, but even that works out to more than 10 grand a race.

“The biggest thing is managing a tractor-trailer and a dozen people across the country,” he said, noting the high price of diesel fuel, like for everyone else, doesn’t help the budget.

His Maryland-based team rents engines from PME (Pro-Motor Engineering) and Neuenberger said the team will switch to a Chevrolet just purchased from Kevin Harvick for the Daytona race.

This year the Sprint Cup, NASCAR’s top tier, is racing what is called the Car of Tomorrow (COT) and asked about how it fits in relative to the Nationwide Series, Neuenberger said it will debut in August of 2009, but noted a lot was up in the air.

He pointed out that many Sprint Cup drivers were complaining about it and he “definitely wouldn’t” want to run it now. He predicted there will be a “real dilemma” regarding car availability as Nationwide teams acquire COTs from Sprint Cup teams.

He’d like to seem then wait another year “so some of theses COT cars are available to the Nationwide Series.”

He’d love to run the Sprint Cup Series but said, “You’ve got to have some really big bucks...NASCAR will tell you it’s fair, but it’s not, but they’ll also tell you you don’t have to be here.”

He noted that last week’s Kentucky Speedway Nationwide Series winner Joe Logano, also the youngest driver ever to win a NASCAR event, has heavy financial backing.

“You wouldn’t believe the money spent to get him dialed in a Kentucky,” He said.

Neuenberger, who used to drag race, said the cars a are virtually the same, Chevy, Ford or Toyota. “You don’t know, you just know if it’s fast or slow...just write me the check.”

He will spend time at Quaker City Castings and at Quaker City Raceway on Saturday where he will appear to sign autographs.

“I’m excited about coming (to Salem),” he said, “we’ve got a lot on the table.”

Larry Shields can be reached at lshields@salemnews.net