Quicken Loans today announced it will expand its sponsorship of Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 39 Sprint Cup car driven by Ryan Newman. The Michigan-based mortgage lender signed a new deal that will see it double the number of primary Sprint Cup races it sponsors in '13 from nine to 18. Industry sources valued the company’s previous nine-race deal at more than $4M. Quicken Loans execs last year said they signed on to sponsor the No. 39 car in part because the company wanted to be affiliated with a team that also had a military sponsorship. The company ultimately found enough value to expand its sponsorship despite the fact that the Army, which sponsored 12 races for the No. 39 car this year, decided to end its support of Stewart-Haas. Quicken President & CMO Jay Farner in a statement said, “We were not sure what to expect with the 2012 season being our first in the sport. What we quickly found was that NASCAR fans are tremendously passionate and loyal to the brands that help drive their sport. It was their commitment to our company that ultimately allowed us to significantly increase our involvement with the sport, Stewart-Haas Racing and Ryan Newman.” The Quicken deal comes at an important time for SHR. The team had more than 30 races to sell across its No. 39 and No. 14 cars, after both Army and Office Depot, which sponsored 22 races on the No. 14 car, opted to end their co-primary support of the team. The team is still shopping 15-20 races on Tony Stewart’s No. 14 car for ‘13. In addition to the sponsorship, Quicken announced a new sweepstakes that will run through this November and reward up to five entrants with a full year of mortgage payments.
