Everyone who’s occupied a trackside seat at Speedway 95, Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, or any other racetrack in Maine has seen ’em, the cars plastered with advertisements. National names like Goodwrench and Valvoline, state names like J & J Auto Salvage, Sunrise Glass: almost every car bears at least one sticker promoting a business or product.

Some cars come covered with promotional material; other stock cars sport a sticker or two. No matter how many advertisements a vehicle boasts, however, a driver tries hard to find sponsors to help defray the expense of racing.

Racetrack owners do the same thing, too. On this level, however, sponsors often support specific races or events.

Roy Cole, the general manager of Coca-Cola Bottling of Bangor/Machias, said that the local Coke entity “supports Unity Raceway and Speedway 95. We have three different Coca-Cola branches in Maine, and each one does a local track. Beech Ridge, we’re a big supporter of, I know.

“Here in Bangor, we sponsor particular races throughout the season. What the racetracks do, they try to sell race dates throughout the whole season to area sponsors. We always take three or four particular races, like sponsoring 100-lappers,” Cole said.

Why would Coca-Cola sponsor stock-car racing?

“It’s image. It’s PR,” Cole replied. “Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke: it’s a good way to get the names out there before the typical race fan.

Most local tracks “don’t sell alcohol, so soft drinks are important. When you get 3,000, 4,000, or 5,000 people together at one time, Coca-Cola wants to be there. People are thirsty, and if you remind them about Coca-Cola, they will buy it when they head for the concessions,” he said.

“The fans, they’re seeing the Coca-Cola logo going past them on every lap. It’s a great way to advertise; they’re getting thirsty, and every lap, they see Coca-Cola flash past them,” he commented.

“See, we sponsor one or two particular cars each season, as well,” Cole said. “In exchange for a fender or hood with a Coca-Cola name on it, a driver is out there flashing our name around the track.

Cole, who confirmed that he had driven stock cars “very briefly, about a half season actually at Beech Ridge, and that was just about 23 years ago,” said that he attends auto races at both Speedway 95 and Unity Raceway. “I go to them,” he said. “The action’s good…a great way to spend a Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon.”

At Varney’s Auto Supply in Bangor, Tim Varney said that his family supports both drag and stock-car racing. “We’ve been doing it about three years,” he said.

“We got into it because we wanted to support our customers, a lot of whom are drivers and own cars. The best way to do it was to support the tracks (the Winterport Dragway, Speedway 95, and Unity Raceway),” Varney commented.

“We sponsor different races throughout the year. The manager of our Bangor store, Malcolm Beckwith, drives a dragster at Winterport. I sponsor him,” said Varney.

As far as Varney’s-sponsored races in 1993, “I think we’re supporting two or three at Winterport and probably six at Speedway 95 and one race at Unity,” he said.

“The advertising exposure is good. What we feel it does, when we advertise on these tracks, we’re advertising our name in front of a crowd, which is of a size that it gives us one of the highest percentage of potential customers who see our name at one time,” Varney stated.

“During the racing season, people come in and thank us for supporting the sport. It’s a good way to thank people for doing business here and for picking up potential new customers,” he said.

Varney’s Auto Parts has stores in Bangor, Brewer, Old Town, Millinocket, Houlton, Woodland, Calais, Machias, and Rockland, and Varney has noticed that “we hear favorable comments from racing fans at many of our stores, not just in Bangor and Brewer.

“Racing fans are dedicated to their sport, and they appreciate corporate sponsors,” he said.

Brian Deane, operations manager for Darling’s Auto Parts-Car Quest, said, “We’ve been promoting Speedway 95. That’s what we’ve done in the past, usually taking a night here or there or some signage.

“We’ve had some participation with certain different drivers in the area. We have to be very careful how we do that, because we don’t have enough money to support every driver, and believe me, there are a lot of good drivers,” he said.

“Talk about supporting the drivers. On April 24, we had a grand opening on our new location at Darling’s Car Quest (Outer Hammond Street in Bangor),” he said. “We gave gift certificates to six drivers who brought in their cars and showed them to the public

“The drivers all race at Speedway,” Deane said. “It was a great success; we had a great crowd for a granding opening. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who follow those races on a week-to-week basis.”

Darling’s has its own machine shop. “We get a lot of work from the drivers throughout the season. They’ll come in Monday morning with a blown engine, for example, and want to get the thing back up for Saturday,” he said. “There’s a lot of dedication in those drivers.”

Deane agreed with Cole and Varney that supporting auto racing was good for business. “If you look at our clientele,” he said, “you will find there is a bunch of similarities: anybody who listens to country western or participates or drives in racing is pretty much the type of people who do the work on their own vehicles.

“By focusing on these people, you’re focusing on the people who are your customers,” he said.

The cost of race sponsorship “can be anywhere from $500 to $2,500. Last year, we sponsored an entire weekend at Speedway 95. Car Quest was the theme, and we had a delivery vehicle with a Car Quest logo on it as the pace car for the races. Every race started off with our car going around the track,” Deane recalled.

Darling’s went a step further that night. “The guys in the store built a mini Car Quest delivery truck and put it over an ATV, and an employee dressed up as Auto the Moose (the Darling’s mascot) and drove the `truck’ around the track,” Deane said.

“Then he got off of that and met with the kids in the stands,” where “he passed out suckers and chatted with them. The kids loved it, and so did their parents,” he said.

Darling Auto Parts-Car Quest owns 13 stores and has “other independents throughout the state. There are 31 of us, total,” Deane said. “This puts us close to just about every track in Maine, but, again, we can’t sponsor every driver in the state.

“We have Car Quest decals in each store, and you’ll see that decal on some car racing on those tracks. Sometimes, the guys will donate something (to a driver) on the local store level, and the guy will put the decal on his car and race it all season with our logo right there for everyone to see.”

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, July 9, race fans in southern Maine will flock to City Square Auto Parts, the name of the Darling’s store in Biddeford. “We’re going to have Bodine’s car that he’s going to be racing at Loudon (N.H.) on the 11th,” Deane said.

“No, Bodine won’t be there, but his car will,” he said. “I think it’ll be a great day for people to come out and see what these cars look like up close. And it will be a great weekend for