Sawyer shopping for new sponsor in 2002
By Ryan Smithson, Turner Sports Interactive
October 25, 2001
4:53 PM EDT (2053 GMT)
AVONDALE, Ariz. -- You wouldn’t expect a Busch Series team that has 12 top-10 finishes since June 1 to be looking for sponsorship.
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Elton Sawyer
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But that is exactly the situation Elton Sawyer and MK Racing are in for 2002. The team’s sponsor, Starter, won’t be back next season. But you won’t find Sawyer going anywhere. Sawyer, fifth in the Busch Series standings, says he will be with the team next season.
“I am committed to this program,” Sawyer said. “But you can’t run it on sheer determination -- you have to have some funding. We have a program that is competitive every week.”
“We have known for some time (that the sponsor was leaving). I think it was because of the Sept. 11 attacks and because of the economy is a little soft. Obviously we are disappointed.”
Sawyer started off the season slowly - he didn’t crack the top 10 in the points until June - but he has come on lately, with just two finishes out of the top 20 in the last 16 races.
“If a team of this status has a hard time getting a hard time getting a sponsor, then there’s something wrong with the system anyway,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer credits his recent success to car preparation, which he says has been much improved since Michael Kranefuss took over the team.
“Our engineers are much more in tune to what we need to do to make our cars more consistent week in and week out,” Sawyer said. “We have the same race cars we had before - it was just how they were prepared and how they were worked on.”
Sawyer says the team, despite their loss of sponsorship, is currently pushing forward for 2002. The team is currently working on a fleet of new Ford Tauruses for next year.
“We are building new cars and doing everything in the shop like we need to be doing,” Sawyer said, “We have not had any reasons to make any changes. We just need to get our programs sponsored. We just need a primary. We have our associates lined up.”
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