September 21, 2009 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) –
GoDaddy.com has signed an agreement to be the primary sponsor of Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 Chevrolets in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The world's leading registrar of Internet domain names will adorn the hood for 20 races annually, including the season-opening Daytona 500, beginning in 2010. Terms will remain private.
Driving the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolets will be current Sprint Cup Series championship points leader Mark Martin, who has agreed to a contract extension that will keep him with Hendrick Motorsports fulltime through the 2011 NASCAR season.
"Mark Martin is the consummate professional and a very exciting driver, to say the least," said GoDaddy.com CEO and founder Bob Parsons. "He's the sentimental favorite for this year's Sprint Cup championship, and we're stoked to have him driving for Go Daddy next year."
The 2010 No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet can be viewed at www.GoDaddy.com/MarkMartin.
GoDaddy.com's affiliation with Hendrick Motorsports began in 2008 with a two-race primary sponsorship of the No.. 25 Chevrolets, a program that this season expanded to seven Cup events. In 2009, the company also became an associate-level sponsor of the No. 5 team with Martin and crew chief Alan Gustafson.
"GoDaddy.com is an exciting, aggressive partner with immense marketing savvy," said Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports. "The fact that they're again expanding their relationship with us says a lot about the success of their business and the results they've seen from these programs. It's extremely rewarding to have a partner grow with our organization, and we're looking forward to repaying them with performance."
In his first Sprint Cup campaign with Hendrick Motorsports, Martin has won four races and equaled a career best with six pole positions. The team announced May 6 that the veteran driver had agreed to forego a part-time schedule and return fulltime for the 2010 season. He now will race the entire Cup campaign through 2011.
"Mark has been an unbelievable asset to our organization," Hendrick said. "I can't overstate the contribution he's made or the kind of teammate he's been, and we're excited that he'll race with us for the next two years. With his focus and dedication, he will continue to make all of us better."
This season, Martin is tied for the most Cup wins (with Kyle Busch) and pole positions (with Brian Vickers). At age 50, he is the oldest driver ever to qualify for NASCAR's championship-deciding Chase for the Sprint Cup, which begins this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Martin enters Sunday's race with a 10-point advantage over Tony Stewart and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson.
"It's a real privilege to have this opportunity with GoDaddy.com and to work with Rick, Alan and everyone at Hendrick Motorsports," said Martin who has qualified for the Chase in all four of his fulltime seasons since the format was implemented in 2004. "I'm looking forward to building on what we've started and driving some great GoDaddy.com race cars.
"As long as I can have fun, compete at a high level and have the opportunity to win, I'm going to continue to do this. I'm having a blast, and that's always been most important to me and my family."
Additional sponsorship for the No. 5 Chevrolets will be announced at a later date.
About The Go Daddy Group Inc.:
Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and Web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce Web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group Inc. has more than 36 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world's largest hostname provider according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2008, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all new domain names created in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.
About Hendrick Motorsports:
Since 1984 Hendrick Motorsports has earned 12 championships in NASCAR's top three divisions and 183 victories in the sanctioning body's premier series, the Sprint Cup. The organization, which currently is celebrating its 25th anniversary season, fields four full-time Chevrolet teams on the Sprint Cup Series circuit with drivers Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Headquartered in Concord, N.C., Hendrick Motorsports employs more than 500 people.
