CDW 'not interested in IRL, NASCAR'.

by Lynne Huntting

Among the turmoil of this year's Champ Car World Series, the impending exit of RuSPORT ranks highly, but the sponsor that has kept the team going for the past two years admits that it has no regrets about pulling the plug.

After Saturday's qualifying session for the season's final round at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Crash.net's 'at large' contributor Lynne Huntting had the opportunity to sit down and chat with CDW's senior manager of national advertising and racing, Bruce Delahorne, and discussed the reasons for the decision.

CDW has sponsored the #9 car raced by Justin Wilson for the past two seasons, with the Briton finishing second overall in 2006 and holding a similar position going into the 2007 finale, albeit chased hard by rookie of the year Robert Doornbos. Delahorne confirmed that CDW's deal is with RuSPORT and not the driver, and that this is the second year of a two-year contract. There was an option for a third year, but CDW notified the team it would not be exercised, prompting owner Dan Pettitt to tell the workforce that RuSPORT would close its doors on the return from Mexico.

Although CDW does not have a personal contract with Wilson, the relationship with the popular driver has been a good one, according to Delahorne.

"It has been thoroughly and completely enjoyable," he insisted, "Justin has been a wonderful spokesman for the company. He has visited every CDW company, some more than once, and has signed thousands of posters, many of which are hanging in CDW cubicles!"

Sponsoring RuSPORT was the first sponsorship of any kind for CDW, one of an increasing number of information technology companies becoming involved in sport. In 2005, the brand was 'on the car' for Wilson and RuSPORT at the Toronto street race - which Wilson won - and returned twice more, in Montreal and at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Delahorne said that CDW was leaving RuSPORT because 'it is not the same team it was when CDW first signed on', citing an up-and-down year off the track for the team, which Pettitt acquired from founder Carl Russo over the close season.

"The merger with Rocketsports was for other reasons than making the car go fast, and that didn't go very well," he reflected, "We made a good decision to go with RuSPORT when we started, but it's not the same team now. The awareness value of CDW is the reason we came to Champ Car."

Delahorne, a self-confessed 'race nut', admitted that he doesn't know what CDW will do after its contract ends with RuSPORT, but revealed that it was considering a range of options, including remaining in motorsports. The 'on track' options include moving to another Champ Car team or into another form of motorsports, but the overall range also has the possibility that the company will not return to motorsport at all.

He also said that there were separate investigations into backing Wilson separately from any motorsport decision but, currently, the company wasn't considering a package deal with the Briton, with CDW more interested in a team which would have Wilson as a driver. The Briton has been linked with the vacancy created at Newman/Haas/Lanigan following the impending departure of Sebastien Bourdais to F1 - a move made more easy by the demise of RuSPORT.

Among the motorsports options CDW is not considering, however, are the Indy Racing League and NASCAR. CDW has had a conversation with IRL, but things changed during the conversation, according to Delahorne, while the company has NASCAR teams which are customers - including DEI and Hendrick Motorsports - and the relationships are going well, but Delahorne intimated that, despite conversations in NASCAR, 'I don't think it would work for us - it costs too much'.