The Home Depot declined to renew its entitlement for Speed's NASCAR program "Race Day presented by The Home Depot." Speed currently is in discussions with at least two companies interested in replacing The Home Depot as the presenting sponsor of its "Race Day" telecast. The show, which is produced live at the track prior to each NASCAR Sprint Cup race, is similar to ESPN's "College GameDay." The Home Depot was the presenting sponsor of "Race Day" for six years. The decision to end that advertising deal comes on the heels of a 12-race reduction in the company's sponsorship support of Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 20 Sprint Cup car. The Home Depot decided to end its support of "Race Day" on Speed because it is "evaluating the best way to spend (its) marketing dollars" and is currently focusing its marketing efforts on the No. 20 car, a spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the company is not cutting back on its spending in NASCAR, saying, "We're always evaluating and we've always changed our marketing mix in the sport. I don't know if you could qualify it as cutting back." The Home Depot in '08 struck a six-year agreement to sponsor the No. 20 car driven by Joey Logano. It recently agreed to let Dollar General sponsor 12 of the 36 races it was contracted to support in '12. When Tony Stewart drove the No. 20 car in '08, The Home Depot previously gave up three races to Subway. The spokesperson said, "That's a pretty normal practice in NASCAR." The spokesperon declined to comment on what savings the company realized by dropping its presenting sponsorship of "Race Day" and reducing the number of races its supports on the No. 20 car. Speed has averaged 687,000 viewers for its “Race Day” telecasts so far this season. The program has ranked as the network’s most-viewed telecast for the week on several occasions, and routinely ranked among the top five. Only two “Race Day” telecasts topped one million viewers this season -- the February race at Phoenix (1.4 million) and March race at Las Vegas (1.2 million viewers).
