Food City 250 - Stanton Barrett Notes

Darden Sponsoring DCT Motorsports At Bristol
Cleveland company, Cleveland owners, Tennessee race

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Friday could end up being “Cleveland, Ohio, Night” in the mountains of Tennessee this week.

The Darden Company, a Cleveland-based general contractor, along with Columbia Building Products also of Cleveland, will sponsor the only team in the history of NASCAR’s top three divisions with Cleveland owners in Friday night’s 250-lap NASCAR Busch Series race at the high-banked, .533-mile Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. Darden is a major retail shopping center contractor, building for tenants such as Target and Kohl’s.

“We’re really excited to have what is essentially a ‘Cleveland car’ on the track, especially at one like Bristol,” said John McGill, the Cleveland resident who owns DCT Motorsports with his wife Nancy. “The Bristol race is one of the closer ones to Ohio, at least to Southern Ohio, and the television ratings throughout the state are normally really high.”

McGill has developed sponsorship packages that could incorporate the full remainder of the season or blocks of races. Utilizing his own business and marketing acumen, he brings creative and fresh approaches not just to team sponsorship itself but areas such as hospitality, cross-promotions and business-to-business possibilities.

The Darden Chevrolet is driven by Stanton Barrett. Besides being one of the top younger veteran drivers in the Busch Series, the 32-year-old Barrett is well known in other areas. An award-winning stunt man from Hollywood, Barrett has appeared in well over 100 movies – including Dukes Of Hazzard, which was released in theaters nationally on Aug. 5 - Spiderman II and others, as well as hundreds of television shows and commercials. Barrett, who is also running some NASCAR Nextel Cup Series events again this season, has been driving since he was 16 years old, and has competed on the highest levels of NASCAR racing. He is a native of Bishop, Calif.