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Nascar: Chickens, Start Your Engines

16 June 1999

Foster Farms Announces Its Premier Race in the 1999 NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series

LIVINGSTON, Calif.--Foster Farms, the largest poultry producer in the West, today announced its 1999 NASCAR racing debut in the Featherlite Southwest Series. The team will participate in at least two key races this season beginning with the Sears Point Raceway event on June 26, 1999 followed by the Los Angeles Street Race September 4 to 6, 1999.

Thirty-eight-year racing veteran Chuck Billington will drive the Foster Farms car, a 1998 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Billington's racing record includes six first-place wins and eight second-place wins in the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) National Championships over the past two decades. Billington is also a nine-time Northern Pacific Champion, a 10-time SCCA Divisional Champion and an 11-time SCCA Regional Champion. Longtime racing veteran John Sanders will serve as crew chief for the 11-person pit crew team.

Tom Foster, the youngest of company founders Max and Verda Foster's four children, owns the Foster Farms racecar. In the late 1970s he and Billington teamed up to form Tracer Racing, one of the most dominant racing teams in national SCCA history. They co-drove the team to an unprecedented 13 national crowns from 1979 to 1997.

"Foster Farms and the Foster Farms racing team are thrilled to be participating in this country's fastest growing spectator sport," said John Bartelme, director of marketing for Foster Farms. "This past year alone, nine of the 10 best-attended sporting events in America were NASCAR races. NASCAR offers us the ability to garner brand exposure and successfully reach consumers in an entertaining and exciting way."

The Foster Farms car is also sponsored by Save Mart Supermarkets, Pepsi, BWM/Tracer Professional Toolboxes and Redline Oil.

In support of Foster Farms' NASCAR racing efforts, the company's Foster Imposters(R) "On the Loose" Road Show will also appear at the races. The Foster Imposters are the infamous junk food-eating, freezer-burned chickens who have gained celebrity status throughout the West in an ongoing advertising story line where they attempt to masquerade as fresh Foster Farms chickens. In doing so, they have spread the word about what it takes to be a Foster Farms chicken -- fresh, locally-grown, natural and corn-fed. At the Road Show, racing fans can sample Foster Farms chicken, have their picture taken with the Imposters and view the 90-second Imposter animatronic skits.

A Foster Farms racecar from NASCAR's Featherlite Southwest Series will also be on display with the Road Show. Fans will receive autographed pictures of Chuck Billington with the car.