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Sunday, October 17, 1999 By Chris Dolack, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
The agreement earlier this year between tobacco companies and attorneys general from several states, including Pennsylvania, has forced R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to end its sponsorship of the short-track NASCAR Winston Racing Series.
The 26-year sponsorship will end after this racing season, which already has concluded at Jennerstown Speedway in Somerset County and Motordrome Speedway in Smithton.
RJR, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., said continuing sponsorship of the series, which permits minors to race, could violate the $246 billion settlement. The settlement also includes smoking prevention campaigns for teen-agers.
RJR said it will continue to sponsor the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and the NASCAR Winston West Series, where all the drivers are older than 18.
On Tuesday, Rick Sanders, president of RJR's Sports Marketing Enterprises, said, "We have reached the conclusion ... that the NASCAR Winston Racing Series was unlikely to fulfill the requirements of the master settlement agreement due to longstanding rules regarding driving eligibility."
"It's not because they don't want to continue," said Chip Rowan, track operator at Motordrome, about RJR ending its sponsorship deal. "Due to the fact that there's minors involved in the Winston Racing Series, because they do allow 16- and 17-year-olds to race in this series, they can't promote them because it puts them in violation of that agreement.
"NASCAR rules only require that the drivers be old enough to have a driver's license in their home state.
RJR this year modified eligibility rules so drivers under 18 could not earn awards from the series points-fund.
"NASCAR doesn't want to give up this opportunity for young people to race and of course Winston has this conflict, too," said Rowan. "It isn't something they decided to do. I think they kind of were forced into it."
An example of the youth movement in the Winston Racing Series is Ryan Hemphill, 17, from Apollo. He finished second in points at Motordrome with 9 top-five finishes, and eighth at Jennerstown with 4 top-five finishes.
So now that RJR will concentrate on NASCAR's highest divisions, the sanctioning body pledges to continue the short-track series while it searches for a new sponsor.
"It sounds like at this point the only thing that's going to be changing is the name of the series," said Rowan. "NASCAR says they're still behind the series. It's a big thing to NASCAR, too. It provides them future racers to race in some of the higher divisions."
The track operators at the 100 paved and unpaved venues of the Winston Racing Series expect to learn more about a sponsor at the series banquet Nov. 5 in Orlando, Fla.
"NASCAR says that for this season everything is in place that we have been receiving from Winston, such as our officials' uniforms, stationary, the point fund," said Rowan. "The point fund is $1.4 million now and some of our drivers definitely get to share in that. We have Richard Mitchell who is the Northeast Region champion this year. He's going to pick up $42,000 from the series."
NASCAR has informed the track operators that the point fund will remain the same for the 2000 season.
"It's a shame to lose as enthusiastic a supporter as Winston," said Stan Lasky Jr., track operator at Jennerstown. "It'll be hard. They were big, big supporters of the short-track series."
"We all kind of knew this was coming with all the control the government is trying to put over how tobacco companies can advertise," said Rowan. "So, we knew that it was eventually going to happen. Of course, when it's final it's kind of shocking.
"It doesn't appear in the short term that it's going to have any affect on our program here."
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