Carl Edwards walked into a Fastenal

Before the Cup wins, Carl Edwards was a substitute teacher in Columbia, Missouri, with a stack of business cards. He handed them out at racetracks, and they said exactly one thing.

The rest of his early career looks like a lot of racers' early careers. He helped out around Mike Mittler's Truck Series shop. His parents put their $18,000 life savings toward a roughly $30,000 USAC Silver Crown car. By his own account, he got hired two races in.

The ask

In 1999, racing at his local dirt track, Edwards went looking for help closer to home. Fastenal's account, reported when the company announced its Cup deal with him in 2011, is that Edwards walked into the Fastenal store in Columbia with a sponsorship proposal. What he asked for wasn't a check. It was a few nuts and bolts and rivets for his race car.

It's worth stopping on what he asked for. A hardware distributor can say yes to hardware without a board meeting or a marketing budget, because it's product the store already has on the shelf. The ask was small, specific and easy to grant. Thirteen years later, Fastenal was on the hood of a Cup car at the Daytona 500.

From a dirt track to Daytona

Edwards made it to NASCAR with Roush Fenway Racing, and by 2010 Fastenal was a regular primary sponsor on his No. 60 Nationwide Series Ford. The first NASCAR win ever for a Fastenal-sponsored car came with Edwards in 2010. They won five races together, four of them in 2011, and Fastenal's Cory Jansen said that season delivered more brand exposure "than we've had in the previous five years combined."

On September 1, 2011, about three weeks after Edwards re-signed with Roush, Fastenal announced a multiyear deal to be primary sponsor of his No. 99 for 17 Cup races in 2012, starting with the Daytona 500. For one race it also sponsored two more Roush cars, putting three Fastenal Fords on the track at once.

1. 1999The partnership starts at Edwards's local dirt track in Columbia, Missouri.
2. 2010First NASCAR win ever for a Fastenal car, with Edwards in the No. 60 Nationwide Ford.
3. 2011Four Nationwide wins together. Fastenal announces its Cup deal in September.
4. 2012Fastenal is primary sponsor of the No. 99 for 17 Cup races, starting at the Daytona 500.
5. 2013Fastenal is reported to spend about $15 million a year in NASCAR.
6. 2014Edwards announces a move to Joe Gibbs Racing for 2015, with a different sponsor.
7. 2015Fastenal stays at Roush as anchor partner on Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s No. 17.
8. 2025Fastenal and the team, now RFK Racing, mark 15 years. Edwards enters the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

The sponsorship became a sales channel

Here is the part that explains why a fastener company kept writing checks. By 2013, Roush had three Fastenal vending machines in its shops, dispensing parts and supplies. More than two dozen NASCAR teams had become Fastenal customers. Fastenal also built its biggest annual trade show for customers and vendors around the Brickyard 400. As one of its regional managers put it: "A lot of the people we do business with are NASCAR fans."

In other words, the car was only part of the value. The race shops themselves became accounts, and the race weekend became the place Fastenal entertained the people it sold to.

When the driver left, the sponsor stayed

In August 2014, Edwards announced he was leaving Roush for Joe Gibbs Racing, where his No. 19 would carry a different primary sponsor. You'll sometimes read that Fastenal followed him. It didn't. Fastenal stayed with Roush as anchor partner on Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s No. 17, extended again in 2016, and in January 2025 the team, now RFK Racing, celebrated 15 years with Fastenal.

That is not a knock on Edwards. It shows how deep the relationship had gone. By then Fastenal's ties ran through the team's shops, its buying and its customers, not only through the driver whose card started it all. Edwards walked away from NASCAR after the 2016 season, and in February 2025 he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.