Little Takes Stock In Pontiac After 15 Years Of Driving Fords, Spokane Driver Announces He’s Climbing Behind The Wheel Of A Pontiac

Chad Little made it official Wednesday.

After 15 years, it’s so long Ford, hello Pontiac.

Back in Spokane for the holidays, Little detailed the changes in a career that took off last year, when he won six Busch Series races for Grand National cars.

The University High School, Washington State University and Gonzaga law graduate pocketed a series-record $529,056. That included a $10,000 front-runner award and $5,000 as the Busch Series’ most popular driver.

After finishing second in the ‘95 points standings, Little said the goal is eight wins and the Busch Series title in ‘96, his first season under a new sponsor, John Deere tractors.

The John Deere affiliation means a substantial increase in sponsorship dollars, Little said.

“We’ll be driving a green and yellow Pontiac No. 23 next year,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be able to thank John Deere and Pontiac a few times from the winner’s circle.”

Accompanied by his wife of three years, Donna, Little held a press conference and later met fans at an autographs session at DK Motor Sports Collectibles in the Valley.

A return to Winston Cup - stock car racing’s major league - is part of the Pontiac/John Deere package.

Little, who now lives in Charlotte, N.C., and his Mark Rypien Motorsports Team are looking beyond next year.

“Our deal with John Deere is for Busch Grand National in ‘96 and Winston Cup in ‘97,” he said. “You need manufacturer’s support to do well at the Winston Cup level. There are a lot of Ford teams. We needed support in a deeper way. We need wind-tunnel (testing) time and engineering support. Pontiac offered that.”

Pontiac is a poor third behind Chevrolet and Ford among the three manufacturers in Winston Cup and Busch Series racing.

“The pendulum swings in NASCAR (the governing body of stock car racing),” Little explained. “In the late ‘80s, it swung to Ford when Ford came out with a new body. A year back, Monte Carlo got a face-lift and was very strong. Pontiac is going to get a face-lift for ‘96.”

The new Pontiac is a “completely new car,” Little said. “It was finally approved from front to back last week. So now the guys can go to work 100 percent putting things together.”

Little drove Fords for 15 years, from local ovals to the super speedways, Daytona and Talladega.

Little said he’s looking forward to the Pontiac philosophy in the ‘97 Winston Cup season.

“Pontiac helps most all of its teams equally, instead of having a pecking order,” Little said.

After a phenomenal start in ‘95, Little ran into trouble through the final third of the season.

“What hurt us the last 6-8 races were the DNFs (did not finish),” Little said. “We crashed a lot. What can you do about that? Sometimes not a lot. We’ve set some aggressive goals.”

The timing for change was right from the corporate standpoint.

“John Deere informed us as we got in the deal that if we had stayed with Fords, the sponsorship probably wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “John Deere and Ford are competitors.”

The team will run a limited Winston Cup schedule in ‘96, “hopefully as many as six races,” the driver said. “If we run any more than six, we lose status as a Busch team and we don’t want that (in ‘96).”

Sponsorship details of his brief ‘96 Winston Cup campaign have yet to be finished.

His season starts with the Goody’s Headache Powders 300 at Daytona on Feb. 17, followed the next day by the Winston Cup race of the season, the Daytona 500.

The team’s 21,000 square-foot garage facility in Charlotte is due to be completed in May.

“As we get that completed and get into ‘97, our next big project is to begin our own, in-house motor program,” Little said.

The program now is headed by Ed Miller, who supplies power plants out of Charlotte under “kind of a sub-lease arrangement,” Little said.

The 32-year-old Little also announced an association with Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery. He and his wife are honorary co-chairs of the charity’s annual campaign that starts in September.

The crisis center, privately funded, is Little’s first major commitment to a local charity, although he said he’s active in volunteer work in Charlotte.

“It’s important to us to be involved in a charity in Chad’s hometown,” Donna Little said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo