Camping World To End NASCAR Truck Series Sponsorship

Camping World’s tenure as  entitlement sponsor of the NASCAR Truck Series will come to an end after this season, company CEO Marcus Lemonis announced Wednesday night (July 27) via a post on Twitter.

Lemonis said the money devoted to the marketing of the series would now go toward raising the “income and benefits” of company employees.

The announcement comes with the Truck Series’ playoffs set to begin Friday night at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

What a ride it’s been! Thank you @NASCAR pic.twitter.com/yLZjJN6OXr

— Marcus Lemonis (@marcuslemonis) July 27, 2022

Lemonis hinted at  “Lots of change” in the future on Twitter earlier this year in response to a news story related to Mars, Inc, another long-time sponsor that is exiting NASCAR at the end of the year.

Camping World has been the title sponsor the Truck Series for 14 years, starting with the 2009 season.

It followed Craftsman Tools, which was the founding sponsor of the series beginning in 1995.

In both 2008 and 2022, the cost of Camping World’s entitlement sponsorship was reported as being $5 million a year.

Lemonis and Camping World first entered the sport as a sponsor of John Andretti in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2006.

In recent years Lemonis and Camping World became know for innovative, if not eyebrow raising, marketing stunts to promote both the Camping World brand and the Truck Series itself, including the Triple Truck Challenge

In 2021, Camping World backed 10 different low-funded trucks in the fall race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

This season, in response to fan response, Camping World sponsored two-time Truck Series champion Todd Bodine in six races in Bodine’s effort to reach 800 career NASCAR starts. Bodine made his final start last weekend at Pocono Raceway.

Lemonis and Camping World’s backing of NASCAR bumped up against the political world in 2015.

That year NASCAR pulled its Truck and Xfinity Series award ceremonies from the Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida.

The move came after Lemonis, a native of Lebanon, wrote a letter to then NASCAR CEO Brian France stating that neither he or any Camping World representatives would attend any future awards ceremonies at Trump properties after the “recent and ongoing blatantly bigoted and racist comments from Donald Trump in regards to immigrants of the United States.”