The National Guard has decided it won't return as a sponsor for Dale Earnhardt Jr., according to a news release posed on the Guard's website this week.
The Guard says its current contract to sponsor Earnhardt's NASCAR vehicle at Hendrick Motorsports and the IndyCar of Graham Rahal expires at the end of this season.
Hendrick said the team "has a contract in place to continue the National Guard program at its current level in 2015," according to USA Today.
"We have not been approached by the Guard about potential changes and plan to honor our current agreement," Hendrick added.
The Guard's acting director, Maj. Gen. Judd H. Lyons, said "significantly constrained resources and the likelihood of further reductions in the future call for more innovative and cost-effective ways of doing business," according to USA Today.
Over $32 million was spent by the Guard as a sponsor for Earnhardt this season, which includes appearing as the main sponsor on Hendrick Motorsports' No. 88 Chevrolet for 20 races, according to the release.
It also spent $12 million to sponsor Rahal, who drives for his father Bobby Rahal, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
"We were informed this afternoon that the National Guard will end all sponsorship of motorsports, including both IndyCar and NASCAR at the conclusion of the 2014 seasons," Rahal said in a release. "This is obviously very disappointing news to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing given the significant incremental brand exposure we have worked to produce for the National Guard in our first season together, including various off-track marketing and advertising programs focused on supporting the mission set forth."
Congress has criticized the arrangement of the Guard's spending in motorsports, and Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said before a May hearing the Guard was "wasting a bunch of money on a very expensive sports sponsorship."
The Guard spent $26.5 million on the NASCAR sponsorship and did not have a single recruit to show for it, according to a 2012 report by USA Today.
"As part of a broad recruitment marketing strategy, motorsports partnerships, including NASCAR, played an important role in helping the National Guard build strong brand awareness and in turn helped us achieve extraordinary recruiting and end-strength objectives over the past decade," said Army Guard marketing chief Lt. Col. Christian Johnson, who heads Army Guard marketing, in a statement on its website Wednesday.
"Our NASCAR sponsorship was principally a marketing program, intended primarily to build awareness of the National Guard as a career option," Johnson added. "The NASCAR sponsorship allowed the National Guard to leverage a 77 million fan base and the sport's most popular driver."
The decision comes at an interesting time, consider Earnhardt is NASCAR's most popular driver and has experienced a career renaissance of sorts this season under the guidance of crew chief Steve Letarte.
This is Letarte's final season as he will become an analyst with NBC Sports in 2015.
Earnhardt won his third race of the season on Aug. 3, sweeping the Sprint Cup Series events at Pocono Raceway.
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