According to Larry McClure, co-owner of Morgan-McClure Motorsports, some folks with big bucks are coming through his Virginia race shop, allowing him to hold out hope that his team will return to Sprint Cup action. In January, the company, announced that it was ceasing operations due to lack of sponsorship. But McClure said Thursday that two Fortune 500 companies and one Latino group are considering sponsoring the #4 Chevy.

One of those potential suitors, who McClure said he’s been in contact with on three separate occasions, will be visiting his Abingdon complex next week. Kodak left as the team’s primary sponsor after the 2003 season, and the sponsorship situation has been shaky, at best, since. [The potential sponsors] can afford to do this, and that’s the big thing, McClure said. ‘A lot of people want to do it, and then, that’s what’s happened to us the last four or five years. We’ve gotten with people, but they were more wannabes than could-be’s. And then we ended up paying the price for it.’

McClure said he has six COTs at the shop raring to go, and that with sponsorship his team can be more competitive than in the past for a couple of reasons. Before funding fell through, he said MMM had an agreement to be a satellite team for one of the ‘big three’ Chevy operations in Cup for 2008 [Hendrick, Childress, DEI]. These kinds of pacts, most recently exhibited when Robby Gordon Motorsports switched to from Ford to Dodge to partner with Gillett-Evernham Motorsports, give a single-car owner some of the benefits of a multiple-car shop.

McClure said a return to racing would be contingent on having that kind of alliance and seemed confident that that opportunity would still be there. In addition, McClure said the team had purchased engines from a team that was switching brands. (’You can imagine who that was,’ McClure said.) Joe Gibbs Racing switched from Chevy to Toyota for the 2008 season. ‘We made a large investment to go really fast,’ McClure said. The owner added that a realistic goal would be for the team to return at the midway part of the season if things go well.

Long Island Press