What were they thinking?

[tommyt654]

So Home Depot drops sponsorship of Tony Stewart after he forms his own racing team last yr and here he goes and wins the season championship last night with a spectacular run of 5 wins in the last tens races of the season including last night when either he or Carl Edwards whos last yrs sponsor now sponsors Tony Stewart in a race decided between the 2 by who finished in front of the other. Simply amazing set of circumstances that played out, but I'd bet HD are kicking themselves in the raer for not stickin with Tony

[Richard in Smithville]

I imagine the sponsorship was through Gibb's racing and not Tony.

[unknown poster]

I don't remember the story being that HD left Tony, I remember hearing that Tony left JGR. Joe Gibbs had the contract with HD.

I had forgotten that Office Depot used to sponsor Edwards and Roush.

More amazing than the sponsorship mess is that Tony fired his crew chief a few weeks ago, to be effective after the last race. It will be interesting to see where Darian Grubb lands after winning the cup.

[Black wallnut]

Also this is not Tony's first season as an owner. He became an owner/ driver in 2009 and had 4 victories in that year.

[gerti]

More amazing than the sponsorship mess is that Tony fired his crew chief a few weeks ago, to be effective after the last race. It will be interesting to see where Darian Grubb lands after winning the cup.

Yeah, I wonder how that is going to work out. "Never change a winning team", isn't that the common wisdom?

[tommyt654]

Ya'll be correct in what your describing, but HD has the right to switch to Stewart/Haas if they had so chosen and instead stuck with at best a mediocre team with Kyle Busch,Denny Hamlin,Joey Logano. I mean c'mon at least Stewart and Newman were highly proven drivers plus had Rick Hendrick backing in frame and engine developement,not to mention who he has driving on his own teams. Somebody at HD dropped the ball there with sponsership and might very well be regretting it. I like Joe Gibbs(wish he was still in football) but he has yet to put together a true winning combination, granted Kyle and Denny made the chase but neither are of the same caibre as Stewart and Newman by any means, just my humble opinion

[sailor55330]

Are you 100% certain that HD was not still under contract with JGR? They may not have been able to drop and move to Stewart/Haas if they had a multi year deal.

If you look at Stewart's career, I'd say he is arguably one if not the most versatile driver in competitive motor sports today and certainly ranks up there all time. I don't think there is another driver with 11 titles in his bank spanning everything from dirt track sprints to indy, to nascar. His performance in the chase showed just how much a driver can impact his destiny. Scary to think what would have happened if he had that intensity for the first part of the season.

[LCHIEN]

Are you 100% certain that HD was not still under contract with JGR? They may not have been able to drop and move to Stewart/Haas if they had a multi year deal.

If you look at Stewart's career, I'd say he is arguably one if not the most versatile driver in competitive motor sports today and certainly ranks up there all time. I don't think there is another driver with 11 titles in his bank spanning everything from dirt track sprints to indy, to nascar. His performance in the chase showed just how much a driver can impact his destiny. Scary to think what would have happened if he had that intensity for the first part of the season.

any contract written by a decent lawyer will have some sort of early exit conditions for both sides. But there may have been penalties involved or even a non-compete (e.g. can't HD can't sponsor a competing team for 3 years or be JGR be sponsored by another hardware store for three years) clause. So it may not have been reasonable for HD to break a contract with JGR and take up with someone else even if that someone else would have had them.