New Sponsor tiwi™ Finds Success; Adds Races with McCumbee

After finding success through sponsorship of the No. 07 SS Green Light Racing NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team with driver Chad McCumbee at Dover and Texas, tiwi™ has increased its sponsorship of the Ken Smith/Bobby Dotter-owned team to include this weekend’s Copart 200 at the Milwaukee Mile and the July event at Kentucky Speedway.

inthinc, inc. originally signed on for a four-race sponsorship showcasing its tiwi brand on the No. 07 Chevrolet. In addition to Dover and Texas, tiwi originally committed to primary sponsorship for upcoming events at Chicagoland Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Milwaukee and Kentucky make six and additional events are being considered.

During tough economic times when few new sponsors are coming into the sport and existing sponsors are reducing activation, tiwi is taking advantage of what the sport has to offer in terms of promoting new products and seeking business-to-business opportunities by strategically managing a two-prong approach to realizing return on its investment. “We are launching a new product,” said tiwi CEO Todd Follmer. “And through targeted PR efforts, we have been able to generate brand awareness and talk about our new product to the NASCAR audience.”

The launch is for tiwi, a product that is installed in a teen drivers’ car and alerts the driver if they are speeding, if they need to fasten their seatbelt, or if they are driving recklessly. Following an alert, the teen has the opportunity to correct the action before the system reports a violation or notifies the parents. GPS technology provides parents’ peace of mind in knowing where the vehicle is located. These unique features provide parents with a solution to ensure their children’s safety on the road amidst all the distractions, which can prove fatal to inexperienced drivers.

“Additionally, we’ve been able to talk to other companies represented in NASCAR about our tiwiPRO™ and waySmart™ commercial systems, which have reduced crash experience up to 90% and dramatically enhance vehicle and fleet efficiency. Nowhere else do you find this kind of access to such a broad consumer base and to other companies of interest.”

The additional tie into the sport is that the tiwi technology used by parents and teens is the same technology NASCAR uses in its backup lap counter system, which tracks the driver’s exact on-track positioning at any given point in time in NASCAR’s top three series. The green tiwi dot logo seen in the windshields of all NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series teams is placed on the box used for this application.

Over the last eight years, information collected by inthinc’s Incident Data Recorders installed in each team’s car or truck has aided in the use of SAFER Barriers at each track where NASCAR competes and in the development of the safer “Car of Tomorrow” currently being raced in the Sprint Cup Series.

At Milwaukee, McCumbee looks to have a safe race and hopes to improve on his best finish of fourteenth at the one-mile oval in 2006. “This is a track where I really look to see some improvement. We were pretty good with this truck at Martinsville until we had an issue with the cooling system. If we can pick-up where we left off there we should have a good run.” said McCumbee. “I just want to thank tiwi for coming on board and really supporting us this season and I hope to do my part to make the on-track efforts as successful as their off-track efforts.”

Also joining the SS Green Light team at Milwaukee is the Lynch Superstore; one of the largest GM dealers in Wisconsin featuring Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, GMC. Chad was a guest of the Lynch Superstore at their recent Motorsports & Custom Car Show.

”I want to thank Todd and his staff at tiwi for coming on board with us for two more races. These are both races that we did not plan to attend and with their support we are getting closer to a full season,” explained Ken Smith. “We are still several races short of funding to make the full year, the entire SS Green Light team is working hard on and off the track to make that a reality.”

The trucks take to the oldest continually operating speedway in the United States Friday, June 19th. Practice starts at 11:00 am with qualifying at 5:30pm and the green flag will fall on the Copart 200 at 8:00 Central time. The race will be shown Live on SPEED TV.