Motor Sports Weekly News

By: Drew Hierwarter

I had not planned to make this week’s column about the economic uncertainties that are facing NASCAR, and all of motor sports, right now. I figured everybody else is doing that and you, dear reader, might want to read about something else in this space. But quite frankly, there isn’t a more important story in racing right now, and it is dominating the headlines, the water cooler talk, and the company conference rooms around the sport.

The hard, cold reality is that the money is just no longer there for racing to continue in the way all of us have come to enjoy and have gotten used to. Race teams can no longer expect large corporations to pony up hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mega-operations that some of them have become. This means these teams can no longer afford large numbers of specialized employees, high priced engineers, fleets of airplanes, and the personnel needed to support them. And the fallout has already begun.

Since the last race of the 2008 regular season, more than 600 people have lost their jobs on various NASCAR teams. The specifics of these layoffs have been extensively reported elsewhere so I’ll not go over all of them. But the end result is that most race teams have been forced to become much leaner than any other time in recent memory.

NASCAR too, has been affected. Title sponsorship of some race tracks and events has been drastically cut back. The “Big Three” major automakers are facing some tough decisions. On the one hand, they are profusely bleeding red ink and facing the possibility of bankruptcy. But on the other, NASCAR has consistently offered them the best return on their advertising dollar. Ford and General Motors have already eliminated almost all of their sponsorships in stick-and-ball sports including the seven million dollar a year endorsement deal that Buick had with golfer Tiger Woods. Even Toyota, which isn’t anywhere near the financial precipice that the Big Three are, has cut back their sponsorship plans by some 30%.

NASCAR is talking about what it can do to help teams survive by cutting the cost of each race. One idea is to reduce the length of some races. The traditional ones will remain at 400 to 500 miles as they are now. But some of the other races may be reduced to 300 or even 200 miles, saving on tires and wear and tear on equipment. They may also restrict the number of personnel each team will be allowed to bring to the track. This will reduce the travel, hotel, and per diem expenses by an estimated $500,000 per team, per year.

So what does all this mean for the average race fan? Well, for one thing, rest assured that racing will go on. Men raced before the factories were involved. They raced before big money sponsorships were available. And they raced before it was possible to make a comfortable living at it. And they will still race in the coming years. But that racing will be very different, for sure. Some of the most cherished teams in the sport, teams that were around in the very beginning, and played a major role in making the sport what it is today are unable to find sufficient sponsorship to continue. Teams like Petty Enterprises and the Wood Brothers are facing extinction and may well be gone before the green flag drops in Daytona next February.

And when that green flag does drop in Daytona there will probably still be a full field of 43 cars roaring beneath it. Some of them may have blank quarter panels, but it is the Daytona 500 and teams will sacrifice to be there. It’s after that when the most change will begin to show up. As the circuit moves from Florida to California, Las Vegas, and Atlanta, we will see fewer and fewer cars and by April we may begin to see 40 car fields or even as few as 38.

A few weeks ago Richard Petty stated in the press that, as a sport, “. . .we have been overspending.” And now that will have to change. The landscape of motor sports will be very different in 2009 and beyond. But one thing that will not change is the idea that someone can make his race car go a little bit faster than the other guy’s race car. Racing will still involve people trying to figure out how to go as fast as possible in an automobile and beat that other guy to the checkered flag. And the best part is we will still get to watch them do it.