DuPont will no longer be the primary sponsor for Jeff Gordon next season. (Photo: Getty Images)

Who will Gordon’s sponsor(s) be for the remaining 14 races?
T/B/A, but Hendrick said that all four of teams are fully funded for next year and with more total sponsor dollars than they had this year and last. Do not be surprised to see Dupont, Pepsi and National Guard still in the mix.

Does that mean the sponsor environment is improving?
Yes, at long last, things are turning around in the NASCAR dollars department, according to Hendrick.

“I think we’ll be ahead of where we were this year and last year,” said Hendrick when asked about funding levels for his teams. “I personally think that brighter days are ahead for our economy and for our sport. Again, there has been a lot of activity. ... We had at least four different sponsors through here on Saturday, the morning of the Charlotte race. ... You’ve got people out looking, shopping, where the phones weren’t ringing and people weren’t returning your calls, either. That part of it feels real good.”

Did Hendrick take this deal because they couldn’t find any other sponsor?
Absolutely not. Hendrick had a plan B in case this package didn’t come to pass. “We always kind of had a deal in our pocket that we could have used,” said Hendrick. “This was just faster, quicker and had a lot more potential.”

Should a non-profit foundation be spending money to sponsor a race car?
This doubtless will be a sticking point for some skeptics, but in truth every foundation spends money somewhere to try and attract corporate sponsors and donors. You can’t raise money without spending money, period. Since AARP Foundation can bring in corporate partners to help fund this deal, potentially its out-of-pocket expenses might be far less than it might seem.

Queried about a foundation spending money, Gordon said, “I had the same questions that other people did, but I think as you get into it, and you see the type of marketing and research and everything that goes into trying to end hunger, and foundations like AARP and how they go out there and reach out to those people, it makes great sense. It’s very, very exciting to have them on board and see how we can help them.”

For the media-savvy Gordon, the cause of fighting hunger will be a natural to promote. “You can go and talk to the media, you can talk to the fans, you can go on a TV show,” said Gordon. “It’s just easy to talk about because it’s easy to get behind it and see how important it is.”

“We have been thinking about who the right partners we need to bring to the table are and who can help us raise visibility around this issue. The NASCAR idea came to the table,” said the AARP Foundation’s Jenkins. “And I think it was an opportunity that they were looking for something that was different that they could get behind more than just a commercial venture, but a cause marketing campaign. And it sort of blossomed from there.”

Jeff Gordon (Right) has spent his entire NASCAR Sprint Cup career in cars owned by Rick Hendrick (Left). (Photo: LAT Photographic)

One of the things that helped seal the deal is Hendrick’s success in raising money and promoting awareness for the Marrow Foundation and other charitable causes the team and its drivers have been involved in over the years.

“We’ve been able to raise an awful lot of money for those causes, and it’s been good for us, so we’re excited about it,” said Hendrick.

To that end, the team is ready to tackle the fight against hunger.

“They’re not promoting AARP,” Hendrick said of his new sponsor. “We’ve never talked about it being an AARP car. It’s all about the drive to end hunger and they can have other partners that they bring on. They made it clear from the very beginning that they were looking for a way to expand their reach and bring this to national attention and have the opportunity to get a lot of people to piggyback on it and they picked NASCAR and they picked Jeff Gordon.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.