Dodson is the crew chief for Eel River Racing, the team currently backed by Viagra.
"They're not rumors"," Dodson said June 3. "I'm pretty positive (they're gone). I saw Jack on TV saying he had no idea Valvoline was gonna pull out They're gonna pull out when you hit them up for a ton of money.
He acts like he's looking for a sponsor and that's all a
smokescreen.""We don't have any announcement to make on who the primary will be next year," Roush said June 2. "There will be a primary for the 6 and we're well on our way to knowing who it's going to be, but we'll wait for an announcement."
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported June 5 that Wal-Mart was negotiating with Roush concerning Mark's sponsorship.
Valvoline announced June 1 that it was ending it's 12-year relationship with Mark and Roush Racing at the end of the season. The price Roush required to continue the deal was too steep for the company.
"We negotiated very diligently to continue our sporsorship of Mark Martin," said Steven A. Krichner, Valvoline's senior vice president of worldwide marketing.
"However, the structure as presented to us by Roush Racing to continue our relationship did not allow for Valvoline to meet it's marketing objectives."
Sources indicate that Pfizer's deal with Roush will be $12 million next year. The team's deal with Eel River is believed to be $5 million this year, the company's first in the sport. Valvoline, which has always required associate sponsorships to complete it's package for Roush, is staying in the sport.
Krichner said the company is currently exploring its options for 2001.
"Valvoline is pursuing other opportunities within NASCAR and we are confident that we will continue to be a major sponsor in Winston Cup racing as we have been for the past 25 years," Krichner said.
One possible suitor will likely be Dodson, who returned to Winston Cup with Eel River last summer and is attempting to build the new team into a competitive entity. Losing Viagra isn't going to help. And he says the company might not fare much better with Roush Racing , either.
"We're a new team trying to start, trying to get there and we're gonna get there," Dodson said. "I remember when he was a new team and he struggled for a couple years. Now he's got better odds than any(owner) of winning every week because he's got the most cars. But he's also got a program last year that used more provisionals than you had races.
He's never won a championship. I don't think he ever will. He tried to go 150 miles on fuel at Daytona one time to win a race (and failed). It's the same crowd that left Sears Point with no back tires and turned over. So, I don't know. I know it's a business move and Mark is a great race car driver and he's very lucrative(to sponsors). I just hate it for us, we've got the same potential they've got.
"I didn't come back over here to be an also-ran and lose my sponsor. But right now, that's where we are."
Roush hates to see Valvoline leave Mark's team, but said its simply part of the sport's changing financial climate.
"That's a great sadness. Valvoline is just a super sponsor, one of the oldest sponsors in racing," he said. (But things are) changing here with many of the pressures that are coming into Winston Cup."
