Kodak Yellow: a small Virginia team and a giant sponsor

Most long NASCAR partnerships involve a big team. This one didn't. Tim Morgan and Larry McClure started their team in 1983 in Abingdon, Virginia, a long way from the Charlotte shops where most of the sport was built. In the middle of 1986, Kodak, which had just come into NASCAR, joined their No. 4 car with driver Rick Wilson.

For the next 17 seasons, the car was Kodak yellow with a red No. 4.

Three Daytona 500s

The team's breakthrough came at the biggest race there is. On February 17, 1991, Ernie Irvan won the Daytona 500 in the Kodak Chevrolet, finishing under caution. It was only the second win in the team's history, and it paid $233,000.

Three years later it happened again. On February 20, 1994, Sterling Marlin won the Daytona 500 in the No. 4, in his very first race for the team. It was also his first Cup win, in his 279th start. Irvan finished second. In 1995, Marlin won it again, becoming only the third driver to win back-to-back Daytona 500s, after Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough.

It wasn't luck at one track. From 1991 through 1996, the team won 9 of the 24 restrictor-plate races, five at Daytona and four at Talladega. Those were the races with the biggest crowds and the biggest TV audiences.

1. 1983Tim Morgan and Larry McClure found the team in Abingdon, Virginia.
2. 1986Kodak joins the No. 4 mid-season, with Rick Wilson driving.
3. 1991Ernie Irvan wins the Daytona 500 in the Kodak car.
4. 1994Sterling Marlin wins the Daytona 500 in his first race for the team.
5. 1995Marlin wins it again, back to back.
6. 1991–969 wins in 24 restrictor-plate races.
7. 2003Kodak's 17th and final season on the No. 4.
8. 2004Kodak moves to a Penske-affiliated car.
9. 2008Kodak leaves NASCAR entirely after 22 years in the sport.

Why yellow worked

Part of it was simple recognition. The red No. 4 on Kodak yellow was, in Frontstretch's words, easy for "everyone from the layman to the heartiest of race fan" to pick out. Kodak's own packaging was yellow, so the car looked like the product.

Kodak also used the car for its business relationships, not just for advertising. For the 2003 Pepsi 400, it ran the No. 4 in a Pirates of the Caribbean wrap co-promoted with Disney, one of Kodak's motion-picture film customers.

How it ended

By 2003, the sport was changing around single-car teams like Morgan-McClure. Mike Skinner left the No. 4 in the middle of that season and a series of drivers rotated through. Sporting News noted Kodak likely had a performance clause that let it out. That November, Kodak shopped for a new team.

Kodak moved to a Penske-affiliated car for 2004. You'll sometimes read that Kodak left because digital cameras were killing film. That explanation fits Kodak's exit from NASCAR entirely in 2008, when it moved its marketing into golf and overseas markets. It doesn't explain the 2003 move, which was about performance and the scale of the team.

For Morgan-McClure, losing Kodak was hard to recover from. As ESPN summarized in 2008: "Marlin moved on to a bigger team, sponsor Kodak left and it became impossible for the team to keep up."