January 26, 2009
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
|
As if there weren’t enough cutbacks and team mergers this off-season, NASCAR wants to force Jack Roush to eliminate one of his five teams before the beginning of next year. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Although the rule was announced in 2005 that required Roush to axe one of his five teams by 2010, the move comes at a time when teams are folding right and left and once proud NASCAR teams that were the foundations of the sport are shadows of their former glory.
The Woods Brothers team is only running twelve races this year, and Petty Enterprises has merged with Gillett Evernham Racing to form Richard Petty Motorsports. Now NASCAR wants to remove one of the few fully sponsored teams that is committed to running a full schedule?
"We've been clear about that and these economic times don't change that," Brian France said in a Joe Menzer article on nascar.com. "There will be a four-car limit, and there are clear lines as to how to be a supplier in this sport, to in theory help other teams get started and how to provide services or engineering or what have you.”
Why would NASCAR penalize a team that can operate successfully with five cars in the current economy just because they want to enforce a four car rule? It just doesn’t make sense. With as difficult as sponsorships are to come by in the current economy, the move could force a paying sponsor to leave the series.
Jack Roush still holds out hope that NASCAR might reconsider the decision but remains realistic.
"I've gotten no encouragement at all that the issue is open. As far as I know, it's a closed issue and in 2010 I'll be back to four,” he said in the Menzer article.
The only other possibility would be shifting a team and sponsor to another team, such as Yates Racing or the Woods Brothers. If such a situation were to occur, Roush promises that the full backing of Roush Fenway Racing would go behind it, that his team would build the cars and provide the engineering for it.
But that is no guarantee that the sponsor would go along with it. Companies sponsor teams based on their performances and the chances that team has of winning and getting exposure for that companies products.
If Roush shifts one of his cars to another team that would be the same thing as allowing Roush to run five cars next season, so why force him to eliminate one of his teams?
However, there are ways around every rule. Maybe Roush should just take a lesson from Rick Hendrick. The newly formed Stewart-Haas Racing will be using Hendrick equipment and technology, so for all intents and purposes, Hendrick will be a six car team next year.
NASCAR officials like to point to the fact that 15 new Sprint Cup car owners have gotten chassis certified this off-season. However, those teams are startup teams and will only be running partial schedules; they are not fully sponsored teams with a legitimate shot at winning races.
What NASCAR is doing is penalizing the successful teams for being successful so that they can redistribute the wealth to smaller teams, which sounds a lot like socialism.
There is a strong possibility that there won’t be full 43 car fields at some tracks this season due to the fact that only 27 cars have full sponsorship for the entire year, which makes this decision all the more preposterous.
It seems that NASCAR is in self-destruct mode. Is this the beginning of the end for NASCAR?
If you would like to learn more about Matthew, please check out his web site at matthew-pizzolato.com.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
You can contact Matthew Pizzolato at ..