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With a few days to cool off after a smokin’ finish (or perhaps not-so-Smoke-in; sorry, Tony), let’s review Speedweeks from the sponsor lens.

Earnhardt Jr. Pays Immediate Dividends
An enduring theme from the weekend broadcast was “Wow, look at all that green! This place used to be red!” Seems that Team Earnhardt’s Big Bet has paid off in at least one way: Junior Nation apparently immediately traded in its Budweiser theme in exchange for the greens of AMP and National Guard.

Time after time, obviously carefully chosen Dale Jr. fans showed up on TV wearing their new t-shirts, caps, sweats and waving those new green banners.

Talk about making a good first “impression.”

Also on that note, NASCAR.com picked up the Sporting News Wire Service’s very interesting story about Pepsico’s pursuit and ultimate capture of the Earnhardt dream.

Can’t Dodge The Impact
Among the feel good stories to emerge in the 500′s last 30 seconds or so, the rare opportunity to feel good for a large corporation was quite a treat. It was hard not to be swept up in the delight at the underdog Dodge Boys pulling off a team victory over the highly touted (and perhaps performance enhanced?) Toyotas, along with the Chevies, and even those Roush Fords.

Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli’s offer of a million dollar bonus to a winning Dodge team has gotten quite a bit of play this week, of course. How did we come to call it a “bounty”? Doesn’t a “bounty” involve a scalp or a fugitive, or at least a really tacky reality TV show? Careless use of language by our big-media friends, I say.

Anyway, Nardelli hasn’t exactly been a corporate hero recently. Having ascended from the magic world of GE to the CEO’s chair at Home Depot, he suffered a fairly public plunge along with the Big Orange (the company, not the 20). There was a certain amount of scoffing among us unwashed when Chrysler picked him up as CEO. But those “in the know” (and, apparently, the “know” who they are) pointed out that Nardelli’s real failure at Home Depot was in presuming that his manufacturing and process expertise would translate well to the rather squishier retail world. Apparently not, and Bob landed with a thud.

Now, as he works Chrysler through its unenviable challenges, some of those same “in the know” seem to think he’s got them on the right track. That’s what we like: a happy ending. And Nardelli certainly got a happy ending last Sunday evening.

That million bucks?

Boy, it’s nice when the stars align. Nardelli and Dodge have gotten millions and millions of dollars worth of media play out of that money. And, heck, if Bob had known he was going to get to beat the Home Depot car on the way to a Dodge victory, he might have offered big money!

Unsung Sponsor Of The Weekend
Our unheralded favorite sponsor for the Daytona 500 weekend, and all of speedweeks is a bit of a suprise: NOS Energy Drinks.

We like brave, scrappy sponsors just like we like brave, scrappy racers. The fabulously named NOS Energy Drink (if you know NOS, you’re a racer, yes?) played its sponsor dollars admirably: It put a little money on a small player in the big show; and a little money on a big player in the small show.

We do like strategic brilliance.

In Sprint Cup, NOS sponsored the very likeable Stanton Barrett, one of those rare tough guys who just scrapes it together every weekend that he can, and goes to the track to race. He’s a terrific if hard-luck story who always generates some media exposure because he’s the Hollywood stunt guy who also races in NASCAR. The media types love that stuff.

Unfortunately, Stanton was taken out of the Daytona qualifying race in a bonehead accident caused by one of the spoiled open wheelers trying to crash the NASCAR party. Crash all you want, Jacques, but when you take out good guys who work on their own deals, we are not amused.

A shame for Stanton and a shame for NOS.

However, NOS wisely also put a little bit of their sponsor loot on the back (well, the front, more accurately) of young Kyle Busch in Friday night’s Craftsman Truck Series race. Genius move. Young Busch has two things going for him: He’s quickly becoming the new master of Daytona International Speedway, that rare guy who can make a car (or truck) do anything he wants, anywhere on that very formidable track. It’s a fairly safe bet that the vehicle young Busch is piloting will spend signficant time on camera. Sponsors will undoubtedly take note, and NOS is wise to get there early. Second, young Busch has that brash, cocky persona that sells so well in the young energy drink market.

So, now instead of beer wars, we have energy drink wars. Instead of an aging Rusty Wallace matching sponsor wits with an up and coming Dale Jr., we have an …um… “maturing” Dale Jr. matched up against young Kyle Busch.

We do love a good sponsor battle.

AMP vs. NOS. The question is not who got the most exposure last weekend. The question is: Who got the most bang for the buck? We don’t have the numbers, but we’ll bet NOS didn’t do too bad.

Next: California. Let’s go racing!