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NASCAR Trucks: Joe Ruttman is having a Great Time with Sponsors Dana and Dodge

25 August 1999

Lebanon, Tennessee---Throughout the first two and a half months of Joe Ruttman's involvement with the Bobby Hamilton/Dana Racing team he has found himself having a great time off the track talking racing at multiple plants for both Dana Corporation and Daimler Chrysler.

"This is one of the biggest and best utilized sponsorships I have ever seen or been involved with," said Ruttman. "Many sponsors just put their name on the truck and that's it. But not Dana and Dodge, they have very aggressive programs that try and get their employees and their customers involved in the race program. We have probably visited ten different plants so far, and at everyone of them we have met most of the employees and signed autographs for them."

Along with the plant tours both Dana Corporation and Daimler Chrysler have hospitality programs that cover over half the race venues that the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series visits. Each company invites as many as three and four hundred people whom they give a race ticket to, a hat, a T-shirt, and in most cases provide lunch for during the event.

"I'm having a great time even though it gets a little hectic some weeks," said Ruttman. "I will say that one of the best times I had was this past week, during a tour of the Dodge plant in Missouri, when I got to drive one of the Dodge Rams off the end of the production line. And that was pretty neat."

While at the Daimler Chrysler plant, Dana Corporation purchased Dodge hats from the company store and offered them to the employees during an autograph session. Which is just one of the examples of what the sponsors do that is a little different than most.

"We use our sponsorship to promote the Dana name but most important of all we use it as a way to get the employees involved in company affairs," said Armedee Nadeau, Manager of Dana Motorsports. "When we decided to make a driver change it was not as easy as one may think. Because of how we use the driver in the plants he has to be able to talk to Dana's people, and Joe Ruttman has proven himself to be an excellent speaker."

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