 Welcome has a smart new business... The new team, which plans to race in the ARCA Remax Series and the Nationwide Series, is owned in part by Will Spencer, owner of JKS; Ed Berrier, a former Winston Cup series driver in the 1980s and 1990s and general manager of JKS; and Danville, Va., native Peyton Sellers, the driver of the new Cardinal Chevrolet race car.
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For a small unincorporated town in the northern part of Davidson County, Welcome sure has found a way to land itself on the map, at least in the racing community.
The owners of Cardinal Motorsports, the second race team to now call Welcome home, publicly announced the creation of their race team Tuesday. It will be located inside JKS Motorsports at the Welcome Business Center.
The new team, which plans to race in the ARCA Remax Series and the Nationwide Series, is owned in part by Will Spencer, owner of JKS; Ed Berrier, a former Winston Cup series driver in the 1980s and 1990s and general manager of JKS; and Danville, Va., native Peyton Sellers, the driver of the new Cardinal Chevrolet race car.
“It’s pretty exciting. I always like being able to start a new team, but it’s a lot of work,” Berrier said.
The new $5.1 million, 9-acre JKS facility opened in December 2007, thanks in part to a $212,000 economic development incentives package approved by the Davidson County Board of Commissioners in August 2006. The grant helped sway Spencer to relocate the business to Welcome from Winston-Salem, where he opened it in 1983.
As part of the agreement, JKS agreed to create 40 jobs with an average salary of $40,000, but the company brought a total of 57 jobs to the county a year ago. The 10 to 15 jobs expected to be created by Cardinal Motorsports are in addition to existing positions, Berrier said. The 76,000-square-foot facility was designed to accompany a race shop along with its day-to-day operations.
JKS provides a variety of creative services for the motorsports industry, including vehicle graphics and signage for marketing companies, racing teams, sponsors and manufacturers. The business also manages team and manufacturing showcar operations and provides custom body fabrication for race cars as well as paint and graphics for tractor-trailers.
In addition, JKS provides logistics and coordination of corporate promotions and other services. It serves not only the racing industry but also organizations involved in professional golf.
Berrier said it may be a challenge to start a racing team in the current economy with race teams across the country cutting jobs and seeking sponsors, but he said Cardinal has some sponsors lined up and is actively looking for more.
“The way everything is now, a lot of people are looking for jobs. Thank goodness we have something to look forward to,” Berrier said. “But right now we’re keeping it on a limited schedule.”
Sellers and the team returned from Daytona International Speedway in Florida last weekend where ARCA cars tested on the track. Berrier said the team plans to complete in just 10 to 12 races next year, starting with the Lucas Oil SlickMist 200 on Feb. 7, just 43 days away. Race teams are expensive to operate, and Berrier hopes the team can consistently finish in the top 10 in the races Cardinal enters to keep its sponsors satisfied. Joining Sellers as his crew chief will be his brother, H.C. Sellers.
“H.C. and I have always been most successful when we’ve had a real sense of ownership, and I’ve always really enjoyed the business side of racing,” Sellers said in a news release.
One of JKS’ biggest customers is Richard Childress Racing. Spencer and Childress are good friends, and Childress put him and Steve Googe, the county’s economic development commission director, in touch with each other when Spencer was looking to relocate his business.
Cardinal will use motors from Earnhardt-Childress racing. The connections with RCR are numerous — Berrier’s cousin, Todd Berrier, is crew chief for NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick, who drives for Childress — and partnering with them made good business sense, the general manager said.
Other past clients of JKS include Hendrick Motorsports, Dale Earnhardt Inc., now Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing, GM Racing, Sprint Nextel, Reynolds American, Anheuser-Busch, several racetracks including Lowe’s Motor Speedway and the Greensboro Coliseum. For more information on JKS, log on to www.jksmotorsports.com.
Seth Stratton can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 226, or
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Source...
Welcome adds second race team
Cardinal Motorsports will compete in the ARCA and Nationwide series
By Seth Stratton
The Dispatch
Published: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 10:03 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 1:40 p.m.
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