Robby Gordon Motorsports
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Robby Gordon Motorsports is a NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Team. It fields the #7 Harrah's/Jim Beam/Fruit of the Loom/Menards Ford Fusion for Robby Gordon. It is based in Huntersville, North Carolina.
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[edit] History
[edit] Alan Kulwicki
The team debuted at the 1982 Cracker Barrel Country Store 420 at Nashville Speedway USA with Bob Jarvis driving it as the #32 Clinomint Buick, finishing 28th out of 30 cars. At the time, it was owned by Bill Terry. The team ran a limited schedule until 1987, when it fielded a full time car driven by a rookie driver from Wisconsin named Alan Kulwicki. The car was now the #35 Quincy's Steak House Ford. After 14 starts, Terry sold the team to Kulwicki. After winning Rookie of the Year honors, Kulwicki changed the number of the car to #7 and got sponsorship from Zerex. Kulwicki won three pole positions and finished 15th in points. In 1988, Kulwicki won his first career race at Phoenix International Raceway. In celebration, he drove the now-famous Polish Victory Lap. He won once more in 1990, but lost his Zerex sponsorship. After beginning 1991 with no sponsor, he got a one-race deal with Hooters after their regular driver, Mark Stahl, failed to qualify. The deal blossommed into a multi-year deal. and Kulwicki won three more races over the next two years. He shocked everybody when he defeated Bill Elliott for the 1992 Winston Cup championship by 10 points. Kulwicki died five races into the 1993 season.
[edit] New beginnings
The team ran under Kulwicki's name with Jimmy Hensley and Tommy Kendall driving, before Geoffrey Bodine purchased the team. He got new sponsorship from the Family Channel for the rest of the year, before it was replaced by Exide Batteries in 1994. Bodine won three times that year that year but finished 17th in points. In 1996, the sponsorship was replaced by QVC, and scored his most recent win at Watkins Glen International Raceway. He struggled in 1997 though, failing to qualify in a couple of races. Despite this, he won two poles in the last two months of the season, including one that broke the track record at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
[edit] Ultra-Mattei
In 1998, he sold part of his ownership to Jim Mattei, and picked up sponsorship from Philips. When Bodine got an offer to drive for Joe Bessey in 1999, he sold the rest of his team and was replaced by Michael Waltrip, as the team switched to Chevrolet. Finishing 5th in the Daytona 500, Waltrip finished the year 29th in points. Getting sponsorship from NationsRent in 2000, Waltrip's only top-ten finish that year was a 3rd at Martinsville. He left at the end of the year, and Mike Wallace took over. Midway through 2000, Mattei sold partial interest in the team to Jim Smith, who bought out Mattei one month later. Wallace struggled with the team and was replaced briefly by Robby Gordon at Sears Point. Gordon scored a 2nd place finish, but later that year, signed with Richard Childress Racing. Towards the end of the year, Wallace left for Penske Racing and Kevin Lepage took over for the rest of the year.
In 2002, the team moved to Dodge, got Sirius Satellite Radio as a sponsor, and hired Casey Atwood to drive as part of a new partnership with Evernham Motorsports. Atwood struggled and was replaced by Jason Leffler in the last two races, after the Evernham partnership dissolved. Jimmy Spencer took over in 2003 and had four top ten finishes. The team ran only two races in 2004 after struggling to find a sponsor.
[edit] Robby Gordon
The team was reinvented for the 2005 with Robby Gordon owning/driving the team with Smith and John Menard as business partners. In 2005 Menard built engines for RGM with little success. The engines were prone to failure. This led RGM to switch engine suppliers and lease from Dale Earnhardt Inc.
In October 2006, Robby Gordon Motorsports signed a manufacturer agreement between Ford Racing and Gordon’s company Robby Gordon Motorsports. RGM will run the Ford Fusion starting in 2007 and will be sponsored by Jim Beam. RGM will also use the Roush/Yates motors.
