Conor Daly press conference

Daly, Peterson and Weber pose with Daly's Smithfield 'Petty Blue' car

MODERATOR: We're in the Economaki Press Conference room in this exciting time. Obviously, the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500 around the corner. You've got the Grand Prix in just a matter of days. We have a very excited race driver here. With us today Conor Daly, of course, a veteran race driver, Ric Peterson with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, one of our car owners; and Bob Weber, the vice president for corporate marketing for Smithfield Foods. We're going to turn it over to Bob. Bob has an exciting announcement today regarding this driver and team.

WEBER: It sure is. We've been in motorsports, as most people know across the country, now in Sprint Cup. And as I sit here, it's exciting for us to finally step forward with the Indy 500, Greatest Spectacle in Racing. It's the next logical step for us. Auto sports program has proven very effective for us, not only in expanding our brand nationally across the country but also in generating sales for our company.

We couldn't be more excited about being here to make this announcement, be part of the Schmidt Peterson Racing team, and to be with Connor who I just met with. I just ran into his mom, and we recognized we were together in Daytona many, many years ago when Conor was a little kid. So here we are many years later, 23 years later at the Indy 500. I couldn't be more personally excited than now.

MODERATOR: Ric, it sounds like a really good partner to get involved with Schmidt Peterson. Tell us how it came together and your thoughts to be able to provide this opportunity for Conor.

PETERSON: Well, we're real pleased with it. Conor had a lot to do with it. It's nice to bring another large national brand to IndyCar. We've had a resurgence lately. We've had Verizon. We've had Aero come to IndyCar. And it's going to be great for our team but great for the series, also.

The cool thing about Smithfield is they love IndyCar racing.

MODERATOR: That's always good.

Conor, what an interesting situation for you, your involvement with the rise the of IndyCar Series. Everything is falling together in an unusual way and you're with a team that you have some experience with.

DALY: For sure, and that's really helpful. A lot of the guys on the team in the IndyCar program are guys that I worked with in 2011 in Indy Lights. So it's really cool to be back with these guys. I know the program is it put together very well, and I'm just really, really happy to be back here and representing a great brand like Smithfield.

The car is the most beautiful car on the grid for sure. So really, really just can't wait to get to work and start knocking out the days and get to Race Day and be prepared as possible.

MODERATOR: Ric made a comment that a lot of this was down to you in terms of this partnership. I don't know exactly how that all came together but perhaps you can enlighten us.

DALY: Yeah, my dad and his partner, Jeff Grist, we've all been kind of working with Bob for a long time to see how we could make it fit and see how we could make things work. And this opportunity presented itself and here we are with a beautiful race car and getting ready for the Indy 500. So it's taken a lot of work and a lot of time, and it's all fallen apart a couple of times but here we are. So I'm excited.

MODERATOR: Bob, when a sponsor gets involved with an operation like this, obviously they think there's going to be some form of payoff for them as well. They're not in philanthropy. Talk about that. Why the Verizon IndyCar Series? Why this team? Why Conor?

WEBER: Well, first, we've been tracking Conor for many years here, all the way from karting, right up through his GP2 and GP3 and his success he's had in Europe. So this is not a paid driver, this something that I and our company believe in in terms of his capabilities on the track. So we've kept very much abreast of what he's been doing and it helped us when the opportunity came in front of us to work.

But in terms for us, what makes it very interesting for Smithfield and family of brands, and the Smithfield brand itself, is that we are an everyday product. People eat our product every day. They're in grocery stores seemingly every day. So our ability to translate and get a return on investment is a lot easier than most companies that get involved in motorsports. So we've worked â€'â€' you know, one of the beauties of this sport as opposed to ball sports is that consumers, fans, truly believe that they have to get involved with our brand to support the sport and the team. You don't see that in stick and ball sports. We've seen that and realized it in Sprint Cup and, you know, last year if you consider â€'â€' we all know about "Fueled By Bacon," which has been our tag line and there's a lot of people lay claim to the bacon craze right now. In fact, it was Smithfield that actually drove it, and Dennis who is sitting in the audience, has been a big part of that. If you consider bacon and how mature a market segment it is, the category was up 5 percent in sales last year, the bacon craze. Smithfield sales was up 35 percent. How about that?

So does motorsports play a role in it? Yes. It's a compendium of different components in our marketing plan, but NASCAR certainly did drive it. We didn't really increase our distribution significantly but lots of people buying our product over and over again. It invalidates everything we know about motorsports and we hope to take that learning and bring it here to IndyCar and make it work for us, because I believe the fans probably know the same thing, we just have to kind of walk them down that path.

MODERATOR: Beside the fact I am now hungry, we have a brief period of time for some questions. We're going to get to see the car here in a few minutes.

Q: Memorial Day weekend is the first weekend where most of the country gets to grill out and starts firing up. Are you going to have any type of promotion now that you've got Conor in the Indy 500 and you have RPM down in the 600, doing some type of Memorial Day weekend promotion to promote your involvement on that day?

WEBER: Yeah. We're actually associated with a retailer to help drive this investment and for some reason they didn't want to be on two cars at the same time in the 500, which is fine. They're a wonderful national partner of ours. We have an overture right now in terms of activating here at the Speedway. We do a lot of that in Sprint Cup. I don't know if anybody watches YouTube, but back at Daytona we set the world's record for bacon eating. We had a guy who ate six pound of bacon in five minutes. Think about that one. (Laughter)

But it's an ongoing event that we do at every race that we're at. It's a contest that kind of mirrors the Chase in Sprint Cup. So we see that happening in the sport as well.

MODERATOR: Other questions for our group before we set them free? Questions on the other side?

Conor, are you excited?

DALY: That's an understatement. Yep. Yeah, I mean I can't wait. It's just â€'â€' this is my home race. So family is here, friends are here. And we've got another opportunity to go out and try and win it. So we're going to try and do that.

MODERATOR: Bruce has a question.

Q: Ric, what about the possibilities Conor might get another race or two with your team between now and the end of the season?

PETERSON: Well, other than Indianapolis there's about â€'â€' I think there's a couple other races where we can run a third car where we don't have Indy Lights at the same race. So we'll have to see how we do at the 500 and go from there.

MODERATOR: There you go.

PETERSON: Yeah, Bob. (Laughter)

WEBER: I've got my checkbook back in the car.

MODERATOR: Conor will follow you out to the car.

WEBER: After he wins, it will be pretty hard to say no.

MODERATOR: I understand the car is ready. Go ahead and take a look at it. Congratulations, Conor, and the whole group. (Applause)