It wasn't stop-the-presses national news that drew much coverage (SPEED was the only media in attendance at the press conference) and, in the good old days of CART, it would have been received as just another day at the office source: champcarworldseries.com - Robin Miller But, in today's economy coupled with the struggles of open wheel racing to recreate interest in this country, it was very much a big deal. The Champ Car team on everyone's radar snagged a significant sponsor. CDW, a Chicago-based company that distributes and markets computer technology in the USA and Canada to the tune of $6 billion annually, signed on with RuSport to sponsor Justin Wilson in 2006. It's been several years since any new, major, American corporations seriously aligned themselves with a Champ Car team and that was when Paul Newman and Ralph Hansen discovered PacifiCare. How Carl Russo managed to find this major player just a few miles from Carl Haas' shop is a story in itself but you could say his timing was impeccable. Wilson won RuSport's initial race last year in Toronto with CDW on the sidepods for the first time. "Clearly what happened in the Toronto market was significant," admitted John Edwardson, the CEO and chairman of CDW. "It was the first time we participated and Justin happened to be the winner that day. "But during the next week we had a significant increase in the revenues of our Canadian subsidiary as a result of the publicity, reaction and increased number of phone calls to the company. That's exactly what we were looking for because we want to do more business.
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