[h=2]Nationwide prepares for No. 88's new era[/h] Thursday, 20 July 2017


By Kelly Crandall / Images by Harrelson & Whitton/LAT

Nationwide Insurance is ready for the next chapter in its sponsorship of the No. 88 Chevrolet.
With the announcement Thursday from Hendrick Motorsports that Alex Bowman would replace the retiring Dale Earnhardt Jr., it was also confirmed Nationwide would continue to support the car. Nationwide has been a long-time partner of Earnhardt and over the last few years has built its racing platform around the sport's most popular driver.
But signing a one-year extension to sponsor Bowman was a decision that came from the healthy relationship built between both companies, Jim McCoy, the director of sports marketing at Nationwide, told RACER.
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"Hendrick has just been a first-class partner since the first race we had in September 2014," McCoy said. "Their approach to managing their partners, to supporting them with their objectives, is like nothing that we've seen and for that reason we wanted to find a way to continue to partner with them even with a big part of our program, being Dale ... going away.
"And we know they're going to take the approach to build Alex the right away. We've seen what they've done with Chase [Elliott] and the transition from Jeff [Gordon] in the 24. We're just excited to see what Alex can do with that great equipment he's going to have access to 38 races a year."
Nationwide will be the primary sponsor of the car for 19 races next year, which is down slightly from the 21 races it sponsors this year. Axalta Coating Systems will be on the car for 15 races.
Nationwide's decision is not all that surprising considering that Bowman already had ties to Nationwide. The company was the entitlement sponsor of the Nationwide Series in 2013 when Bowman ran full-time. When he hopped into the car late last year to fill in for Earnhardt, the connection grew even more.
"Very excited to partner with Alex," McCoy said. "He's been great in the process of getting to know him – he spent some time in Columbus at the (Nationwide Children's) hospital just trying to understand who we are.

"Our approach to sponsoring a race car may be a little bit different than others, so, just wanted to make sure that we had a good fit and really excited to get to work and focus on 2018 and coming out of the gate strong at Daytona."
McCoy called Bowman both "humble" and "very talented," and Nationwide liked what they saw when he was placed in a challenging situation late last year.
"We had great interaction with him and found it was going to be a good fit and easy transition as we move from Dale," said McCoy. "You can't replace a Dale Jr., but I think the program we've built is strong and Alex will be a great contributor to the success of that going forward."
Nationwide will leave the goals and expectations for Bowman to the No. 88 team. The focus from a sponsorship side is on marketing, activation and the biggest area – social media – as McCoy said Nationwide would work with Earnhardt to hopefully shift his fan base to continue to support the No. 88 team and channels.
Doing so is part of a journey that sees one relationship (Earnhardt) end, and another (with Bowman) begin. It's a reality that has not quite sunk in, but McCoy knows it will continue to do so as the season winds down.
"This [announcement] kind of really starts to put the stake in the ground for where we go forward," McCoy said. "We've been partnered with Dale for a long time, and we are working on what that partnership looks [like] as he transitions into retirement. ... We've got a lot of financial services and retirement products that fit his position right now, so we'll probably have some fun with that. But yeah, it's becoming a reality."
McCoy said Nationwide also has celebrations planned down the homestretch for Earnhardt and they still hold out hope he will be able to contend for the championship. And with Bowman, Nationwide will start to really write the next part of its history as it begins the advance work for 2018.
"As we see all the different designs for next year's car and all the different milestones that we used to hit with Dale," McCoy said, "it'll definitely start to become a reality."