Joe Gibbs: Addition of Circle K to JGR "a winner" for all involved

In an announcement Wednesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, JGR announced a multi-year deal with Circle K convenience stores to sponsor Matt Kenseth’s No. 20 Toyota in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

Circle K will serve as primary sponsor in at least six races this season, beginning next week at Richmond, Va., and will serve as an associate sponsor the remaining races on the schedule.

JGR has been working to replace about 30 races on Kenseth’s car left vacant by Doller General, which ended its NASCAR participation last season.

“What’s unique about our deal with Circle K is the (business-to-business) opportunities almost immediately showed up,” Gibbs said. “They get branding, they get a chance to be on the car and our fan base will see Circle K flying around the race track.

“The other part of it is something that we haven’t experience before at JGR. When we brought this deal up to our other sponsors, you look at someone like Comcast. Comcast has a fleet of 37,000 vehicles driving around out there. You look at similar things at FedEx; at Interstate Batteries.

“Immediately, if you take Circle K to them and they get an advantage on their fuel prices, that’s a winner right there. And it’s a winner for all those other companies and obviously Circle K gets the benefit of that many more customers.”

Bringing new sponsors into the sport

Gibbs said he is always excited about bringing new sponsors into their NASCAR program but the opportunities of growth through business-to-business relationships seem limitless.

“This is really what the sport is all about. People say, ‘Why NASCAR?’ We have a huge marketing window, but the B-to-B area is where the sport is growing the fastest,” Gibbs said.

“The companies that we get – we have a marketing summit next week – when they get together and talk about ways they can work together, that’s a real strength and bodes well for where we are headed in our sport.”

Roger Penske, who owns various companies outside of his motorsports ventures, has mastered B-to-B relationships, but Gibbs’ business involvement has been almost strictly in motorsports. The B-to-B dynamic is a relatively new and important one for JGR.

“It’s going to be a big plus when these big, powerful companies work together,” he said.

In addition to next week’s Richmond race, Circle K will appear as a primary sponsor on Kenseth’s car at the spring Talladega race; the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte; Kentucky and the fall races at Texas and Phoenix.