Richard Childress Racing today will announce that Caterpillar has renewed its primary sponsorship of the team’s No. 31 Chevy in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Financial terms and how many races Caterpillar will serve as primary sponsor for were not released, but the company has been a primary sponsor of the team since ’09 and on the hood of Ryan Newman’s No. 31 for up to two-thirds of the season in recent years. RCR said that Cat will increasingly utilize the NASCAR sponsorship with consumer-facing activation after originally leveraging it for B2B and customer/dealer hosting purposes. For example, Cat last month rolled out a new spot showing off its Cat S60 phone --part of its Cat Phones line -- that highlighted how the No. 31 team uses the smartphone’s thermal imaging technology to track the temperature of different parts of the car. Cat also creates content and messaging around Newman’s love for animals and his animal rescue and education facility in North Carolina. Cat has been a NASCAR sponsor since ’93 and handles its sports marketing in house, led by Head of Motorsports Terry Baumgarten. The Cat announcement comes after RCR announced earlier this week that Bass Pro Shops would also continue its support of the team in ’18.
