Rudd back with Yates, Snickers to sponsor.

NASCAR veteran Ricky Rudd will be back on the Nextel Cup grid full-time in 2007, having agreed to fill the seat at Robert Yates Racing vacated by Toyota-bound Dale Jarrett.

As well as confirming Rudd's return, the Yates team also a revealed that existing partner Masterfoods USA will put its weight behind the effort by lining up its Snickers brand as sponsor. As a result, Masterfoods becomes the only backer to have two competing brands in opposition within one team, as Snickers will go up against M&Ms, which appears on the second Yates entry driven by David Gilliland.

"This second sponsorship allows Masterfoods to showcase additional brands such as Snickers, Combos and Pedigree, with Snickers serving as the primary brand on the car," Masterfoods director of sponsorships and sports marketing Williams Clements explained, "Also, the sponsorship of a second team will strengthen Robert Yates Racing and will define it as a multi-car Nextel Cup team in the coming season.

"The addition of Ricky Rudd, who provides 30-plus years of experience, will bring added leadership for the entire organisation as well as assisting in the continuing development of David Gilliland. We feel that Ricky and Snickers is a perfect complement to David and the M&M's racing team."

The deal to drive the Snickers-backed Ford Fusion reunites Rudd and Yates, who teamed up between 2000-2002 with three race wins and successive top ten championship finishes.

"It's good to be back and it's really good to be back in the Snickers Ford Fusion and to team back with Robert Yates Racing," Rudd admitted, "I'm really looking forward to the '07 season - and having a team-mate to work with is something that I haven't had the luxury of in quite some time.

"We've already practiced a couple times with David Gilliland and hit it off real well, so I'm really looking forward to the new season and can't thank the Masterfoods company enough for participating and stepping up and sponsoring both cars at Robert Yates Racing."

Yates admitted that Jarrett's departure and Masterfoods' increased commitment provided the ideal opportunity to hire one of NASCAR's long-standing servants.

"This is Christmas and this is a wonderful deal for Masterfoods to support us in this way," he said, "The opportunity to get Ricky, who had three very successful years with us, back to do it again is great too. Hopefully, we can start off equal to - or better than -what we were and we're looking forward to that.

"I think we have the strength and the depth. We certainly have the desire. Ricky has that and we have the desire and we have the belief that we can go out and have a great year, so we're excited about this."