It’s virtually unheard of in NASCAR for a sponsor to continue to partner with a driver long after that driver’s racing days are over.
One notable exception: 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton and State Water Heaters. The two formed a relationship in 2006 when State Water Heaters officials agreed to become a primary sponsor on Burton’s No. 4 Morgan-McClure Motorsports Chevrolet for the 2007 Cup Series season – his final year in NASCAR’s premier division.
That relationship continues to this day and is stronger than ever.
“When the on-track stuff ended with State and Ward in 2007, Ward said, ‘Hey, man, we work really well together. How can I help you continue to sell water heaters?’” said Jeff Storie, State Water Heaters’ marketing director. “So, Ward and I put together a program in 2009 where we would go and utilize the Richard Petty Driving Experience, bring Ward along, rent the whole day out at the track and let Ward take our customers on an adventure both giving them a ride at his speed, and then letting the customer get in the car and do what they could at their speed.
“So, we built a new relationship around those sorts of things as well as events at Ward’s properties.”
Through his nonprofit Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation, Burton is responsible for, among many other things, the upkeep of roughly 11,000 acres of land – spread across five counties in his home state of Virginia.
An avid outdoorsman his entire life, Burton is a major advocate of wildlife conservation, which is all about the preservation and protection of animals, plants and their habitats so future generations can benefit from nature.
“He tries to take care of nature because nature means an awful lot to him,” Storie said. “There’s a famous story about Ward as an 18-year-old or 19-year-old going out and living in the woods for a year or two. Literally, like Grizzly Adams, he lived off the land – even before he got into racing.
“So, the outdoors mean a lot to him. And it’s great because it just aligns so closely with what our customers do in their free time and so it’s just a natural fit for us to support him and support the Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation and then use that as a tool to sell water heaters.”
For the better part of two decades, State Water Heaters has been involved in virtually every part of Burton’s life since he retired from the Cup Series with five wins that included not only the Daytona 500 but one of the sport’s other “crown-jewel” events, the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
State Water Heaters’ involvement in the Burton family’s endeavors include but aren’t limited to the company’s support of ongoing fundraising events in connection with the WBWF, helping Ward with various projects he undertakes on a regular basis to show appreciation for U.S. military veterans, serving as a NASCAR Xfinity Series team sponsor for Ward’s son Jeb, and sponsoring “Crossroads with the Burtons “– a Sportsman Channel TV series featuring the Burtons and focusing on their lives away from the track and affinity for all things outdoors.
State Water Heaters also provides funding for an emotional support dog that the Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation gives away each year to someone in need.
“They’ve been more of, really, a friend and part of the family than a sponsor,” Burton said of State Water Heaters, a leading manufacturer of commercial and residential water heaters for more than 60 years. “Pretty much every facility that my foundation has or I have either has or is going to have State Water Heaters providing our hot water. What they’ve done to help support our conservation efforts, in particular veteran outreach, has been outstanding as a company.
“To meet and work with their contractors, wholesalers and reps around the country has been a privilege because they’re all hard-working men and women that own their own companies. It’s just been an awesome opportunity to meet great people, and, hopefully, we’ve got many more years to work together and keep on trying to make a difference.”
In return for all that State Waters and parent company A.O. Smith do for his foundation and other philanthropic interests, Ward Burton uses every available opportunity to promote the brand. Sometimes, that means taking customers fishing or hunting on the land his foundation owns and manages. Other times, it might mean picking up the phone and calling someone that State Water Heaters believes the business could serve.
“Ward has several properties now where you can shoot skeet, shoot bow-and-arro,w and go fishing,” Storie said. “So, we utilize those and put Ward and Jeb with our customers off the track. Hunting and fishing align tightly with what our customers spend their weekends doing. That is Ward Burton in a nutshell: outdoors with a fishing pole or a shotgun. So, we’ve just continued that over the full length of our agreement. Some years look different than others, but there hasn’t been a year that’s gone by where we haven’t put Ward with a fishing pole with our customers and just had one hell of a fun time.”
As recently as December, Burton hosted two clay target shooting and quail hunting events, each attended by a dozen State Water Heaters customers who own their own heating and plumbing business. Burton hosted one of the events at a facility run by his foundation, while the other took place at a property in the Richmond area.
“Pretty much any opportunity that we run across – it may be a single individual, particularly a veteran that’s needing help – State Water Heaters is always there, and they’re always trying to make a difference,” Burton said. “We in return are always trying to find new ways to communicate about new types of activities we can do to support one another.”
Burton doesn’t receive personal payments from State Water Heaters, but the money goes to support the causes in which he believes.
“That just makes the relationship that much more realistic and that much more special,” he said. “They’re good people that run that company. And all these individually owned plumbing companies that buy State Water Heaters, they’re buying them because they believe in the products and that technology is changing quickly with all kinds of new products.
“So, they’ve got the support, but they know the reps and the company are going to do everything they can to support them so they have the margins to make a living and they have happy customers. So, at the end of the day, that’s why State Water Heaters and A. O. Smith are successful. And we’re just lucky to be a part of all that, you know?”
State Waters Heaters feels just as lucky to be partnered with the Burtons.
“When we got the chance to take a person with the history and success of Ward and attach him to our brand and put him in front of our customers, obviously, it was a no-brainer,” Storie said. “And I think as that’s unfolded, it’s turned into everything we hoped it would be.“We’re coming up on our 20th year in racing in 2025, and I personally think that’s a really cool thing, because sponsors just don’t stick around that long. But for us, it’s morphed beyond just racing to “Crossroads with the Burtons” and being able to take our customers fishing on Ward’s property, and things like that. Who Ward is, ties really, really closely to who our customers are – just hard-working, blue-collar guys. And that’s become a really cool and successful thing for us.”
