Continental Tire has joined forces with the SPEED Energy Stadium Super Trucks for the 2019 season. On Friday, the South Carolina-based company announced it would provide tyres for the series and field a Continental Tire-sponsored truck throughout the year. Four trucks will compete using Continental’s TerrainContact A/T tyres.
“We are very excited to partner with the SST championship,” Continental Tire Director of Marketing Travis Roffler stated in a release. “This is a thrilling series that will fully show the capabilities of our light truck tire, the TerrainContact A/T, which demands performance.
“The excitement of high-flying trucks combined with the full contact, side-by-side racing is something that draws a crowd at every venue that the SST championship visits. We’re looking forward to showing what the TerrainContact A/T can do. It’s a spectacular show and we are thrilled to be a part of it.”
For much of its history, the Stadium Super Trucks have raced with almost exclusively Toyo Tires, with other brands being used during the inaugural season in 2013. Toyo is a partner of series head Robby Gordon.
“To have Continental Tire, a brand synonymous with manufacturing quality street and race tires, join the 2019 SST Championship as a tire partner is a big deal for the now seven year old series,” Gordon said. “There is no better environment for a manufacturer to prove the performance and durability in their DOT tire than with 600 hp high flying SST trucks. The TerrainContact A/T will be put to the test in 2019 with the various racing surfaces offered on the diverse SST Championship schedule.”
In conjunction with the partnership, Continental Tire will also sponsor a gold-and-black truck, to be driven by Ryan Beat, Sheldon Creed, and Greg Biffle. Beat races in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series‘ Pro Lite division, winning the championship in 2018; 2019 will mark his SST debut. The two-time SST champion and winningest driver in series history, Creed currently competes in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series; entering Saturday’s NGOTS race weekend at Martinsville Speedway, the reigning ARCA Menards Series champion and Truck Series rookie is tenth in points. A longtime NASCAR veteran, Biffle is one of eight drivers in history to win titles in at least two of NASCAR’s three national series (Truck in 2000, what is now the Xfinity Series in 2002); he made his first SST start in 2018 at Road America, where he finished eleventh and second.
Beat will drive the truck, numbered 51, for the upcoming weekend’s season opener at Circuit of the Americas.
