NASCAR partners with Leidos to promote lunar terrain vehicle

Leidos Holding Inc., a U.S. civil/defense contractor (NYSE: LDOS), is partnering up with NASCAR in a moonshot sponsorship to promote a rover-terrain vehicle it hopes NASA will select for outer space exploration.

This is a unique partnership, but it deepens Leidos involvement with the Daytona Beach-based auto race sanctioning and operating company NASCAR. It's already a sponsor of 23XI Racing, which includes driver Bubba Wallace. And it's an ideal brand for this because it involves both a vehicle – albeit a vehicle that's meant to land on a moon – and a racing championship.

Leidos announced the deal recently, with no details disclosed. This is the first instance that it has worked with a racing league to spread the word about a contract they are trying to secure with the U.S. Government.

Leidos is based in Washington, D.C. and has a subsidiary that specializes in applied sciences called Dynetics. They have submitted a bid for a NASA Artemis contract.

Artemis aims to restore a regular human presence -- as well as a robotic one--- on the moon. Dynetics has developed a lunar-terrain vehicle, as well as other components that NASA will need to carry out the next phase after November's launch of Artemis 1, which traveled 1.4million miles to and from space in a 25 day mission.

NASCAR will use its marketing arm to promote Dynetics bid. This began at Talladega, last month, when Wallace and Dynetics Senior VP/Aerospace, Defense & Civil Operations Jonathan Pettus showed off the lunar-terrain vehicle.

Another NASCAR tie in: Roush Industries (owned by RFK Racing's co-owner Jack Roush) helped Dynetics to design and manufacture the car.

Both sides released a video about the partnership, and spoke about it at the Space Foundation’s 38th Annual Space Symposium in Colorado last month to spread the word.

Leidos, a Fortune 500 firm, reported a revenue of $14,4 billion and 45,000 employees last year. CMO Pete Jung, who works for NASCAR, was involved in the setting up and execution of the agreement.