{"id":212651,"date":"2025-10-14T15:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T15:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/212651\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T15:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T15:53:10","slug":"sunoco-expected-to-return-as-nascars-official-fuel-supplier-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/212651\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunoco expected to return as NASCAR\u2019s official fuel supplier in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunoco is tracking toward a renewal as the exclusive fuel sponsor of NASCAR, according to people familiar with the matter, but questions about the category\u2019s long-term future could remain even with the extension. The sides first entered into the current agreement in 2004<\/a> but went into a contract year in 2025 with no renewal having been reached. That allowed NASCAR to explore its options with other companies in the category<\/a>, SBJ previously reported. <\/p>\n

One of the scenarios that NASCAR considered was having one company take over both the official fuel category and the official motor oil designation, sources said. Those are currently split between two companies, with ExxonMobil brand Mobil 1 being the other. Sunoco\u2019s deal expires after 2025, but it was unclear when Mobil 1\u2019s goes through. NASCAR was seeking in the range of $10M annually for control of both categories, sources said. It was unclear how much Sunoco pays, but its original deal was 10 years for $8M-$10M annually, SBJ reported at the time. The full list of companies that NASCAR spoke to hasn\u2019t been learned, but the racing sanctioning company was expected to talk to major fuel companies already in racing like Shell and Exxon-Mobil.<\/p>\n

Sunoco has reduced its retail presence in recent years and become more reliant on B2B fuel sales following a $3.3B deal in 2017 to sell 1,100 convenience stores to 7-Eleven, lessening its need for consumer advertising. The company used to create elaborate season-long marketing campaigns and TV commercials around NASCAR<\/a>, but has appeared to back away from that strategy in recent years. Still, the company continues to reliably deliver fuel to race tracks on a weekly basis in a sport with a nearly 10-month season, something that is likely to be equally valued by NASCAR. Five people familiar with the search said they expect Sunoco to retain the rights next season. No announcement has been made about a renewal yet. Sunoco didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment but earlier this year confirmed it was in discussions about next year and beyond. NASCAR declined comment. <\/p>\n

CRUDE WORLD: Some industry executives tracking the negotiations pointed out that a shorter renewal would allow NASCAR to test the market again in a few years. Energy behemoths like Shell, Exxon Mobil and BP also have a more national and global presence than Sunoco, something that also could be alluring to NASCAR as it looks for growth levers. On its website, Sunoco says it has 5,200 stores in the U.S., but most are based in the northeast and central regions. For example, Pennsylvania has 866 locations while California has eight, according to Sunoco\u2019s listings. The exclusive fuel deal with Sunoco is more complicated than straight sponsorship in that the company is providing value in kind with its fuel along with receiving promotional benefits like on-air mentions. Sunoco also still owns the rights to one of the massive \u201cinjector\u201d branded entrances<\/a> at Daytona International Speedway, though it\u2019s unclear whether that is being renewed concurrently to the sanctioning body deal. The other element of the energy category for NASCAR is biofuel, to which American Ethanol previously held the rights. Energy and renewable fuels are becoming an important topic in racing as series try to show their sustainability bonafides. F1 is working with Saudi state-owned oil company Aramco<\/a> on a sustainable fuel that has been tested in the lower-rung F2 and F3 in recent years and will be introduced to the premier series in 2026, similar to how MLB experiments with new concepts in the minor leagues.<\/p>\n

PUMP IT UP: Dallas-based Sunoco has been the official fuel of the auto racing property\u2019s three national divisions since 2004 after it replaced the longtime prior sponsor in ConocoPhillips\u2019 76 brand, which had held the rights since 1954<\/a>. The publicly traded Sunoco does advertise its presence as the official fuel of NASCAR on many of its remaining stores, but NASCAR\u2019s old logo remains on many of them despite the racing series having designed a new one in 2017. Sunoco\u2019s prior marketing campaigns in NASCAR include one in 2015 called Essence of Racing, where it created a cologne that smelled like tires<\/a> called \u201cBurnt Rubb\u00e9r.\u201d Fuel is one of two exclusive competition-related sponsorship categories in NASCAR that all teams have to work with, the other being Goodyear for tires. Sunoco operates in over 40 states in the U.S. along with Puerto Rico, Europe and Mexico, and its fuel distribution efforts include 14,000 miles of pipeline and over 100 terminals, according to the company. Its stock is down 4.2% this year but up over 95% over the last five years, and it closed at $50.25 a share on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunoco is tracking toward a renewal as the exclusive fuel sponsor of NASCAR, according to people familiar with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-212651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}