UPS Racing Logo


UPS Makes Centennial Announcement

May 1, 2007

UPS conducted its first special paint scheme program of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway with the Kentucky Derby program. Amidst all the excitement leading up to the 133rd Kentucky Derby, UPS also announced plans for another special paint scheme program that has a very special meaning for UPS and its more than 400,000 employees worldwide.

UPS Makes Centennial Announcement

2007 is the 100th birthday for UPS and to celebrate, the motorsports marketing department created a special paint scheme program that gave UPS employees the opportunity to design the paint job for the #44 UPS/Centennial Toyota Camry. Dale Jarrett will race the car in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 25. Joe Hill, a field support technician at the UPS Worldport in Louisville, Ky., is the employee whose art work was selected as the grand prize winning paint scheme. To celebrate the achievement, Jarrett arrived in Louisville on April 17 to meet the winning artist and unveil the winning design.

Jarrett arrived in Louisville early that Tuesday morning, where nearly 200 UPS employees waited to take in the unveiling of the special paint scheme and the introduction of Hill as the winning designer. Brendan Canavan, one of Hill's fellow employees at the UPS Worldport, presided over the program, taking the opportunity to make the event a little more festive with some light comedy.

"Dale (Jarrett) has made it safe and sound and we're sure glad about that, but if I look a little nervous this morning it's not because of our special guest," Canavan started. "It's because as I look out in the crowd and see all the IT folks I'm a little nervous about our systems inside so we're going to keep this event moving."

For Jarrett, the event was an opportunity to thank UPS and the employees for their continued support since becoming his primary sponsor in 2001 as well as introduce Hill.

"I've said many times that we've done a lot of things over the years and have been very fortunate in this sport to win a lot of races and some big races and win a championship," Jarrett started. "But nothing put the name of Dale Jarrett and the face of Dale Jarrett out there to the public more than when I became associated with UPS in 2001 and we're very proud of that."

"What we're here today for is a different paint scheme that we're going to be running in Bristol in August and what a special place to run it at," Jarrett continued. "We do have one very special winner and he is here with us today. As I was looking over the notes I wondered whether he knew he was the winner. When I came in and saw Joe's name up here I thought well yeah, he did know so we didn't have to keep it a secret for very long. These paint schemes are always fun things for us to do and UPS, over the years, has been very particular about the things that we get involved with as far as changing the color scheme of the race car so this obviously is one very special time that we're excited to be part of."

When Hill was introduced on stage he took the opportunity to thank UPS for the opportunity to design and provide a little insight to how he came up with the paint scheme.

"I want to thank UPS and Michael Waltrip Racing and Dale Jarrett for sponsoring this contest in the first place - it's really nice for employees to be able to get involved," Hill said. "Obviously none of us here have been here for the 100 years but there are a few things that have been consistent with UPS in 100 years and one is that UPS has always prided itself with its quality of service. We aren't very flashy and while we're encouraged here at UPS to think outside the box, I didn't want to go outside the box too much with this design because that's not how UPS is. So I didn't want the car to be too flashy.

"Another thing that I really concentrated on was the brand recognition with the UPS brown," Hill continued. "Somebody sees a brown truck going down the road they don't even need to see the logo because they know it's UPS. So I wanted the primary colors on the side of the car to be brown."

After speaking, Hill and Jarrett unveiled the design and posed for pictures. Before the event concluded, both men participated in a few interviews with local media that were on hand for the event.

Now that the car has been unveiled Hill will be making preparations for his trip to Bristol to watch his design under the lights - an event which Jarrett believes to be the ultimate racing experience.

"If you told me, as a race fan, to choose one race that I could go to, it would be the night race at Bristol in August," Jarrett said. "It's just the most exciting race that there is on the circuit."

For Hill, he's looking as forward to a win as he is watching the car he designed racing on the track.

"We're pretty happy with the car and I hope all of you are," Hill said. "I look forward to seeing it race at Bristol and I really look forward to meeting Dale in the winner's circle."

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