February 15, 2010
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
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A story that has quietly gone under the radar in the Nationwide Series at Daytona, most likely due to the media fixation on Danica Patrick, is the small group of car owners who withdrew their entries from the field, leading to speculations that there were monetary payoffs.
While there has been no confirmation that such events transpired, it stands to reason. Daytona is the biggest race of the year with the highest payment for the so called "start and park" teams. Nationwide qualifying was rained out Friday, so the field was set by the rule book.
Driver Paul Menard found himself five positions out of the race and all of a sudden, the five teams ahead of him withdrew and Menard was allowed to participate in the Nationwide race at Daytona and posted a sixth place finish after starting dead last. Apparently the investment was money well spent.
Granted, most of the teams that withdrew were start and park teams that enter a race for the prize money that NASCAR awards just for starting a race. Four of the five teams that withdrew wouldn't even have made the race, so there were benefits all around. It is estimated that the payoff for starting the Nationwide Daytona race was to be more than $45,000. So why would a team turn down that much money unless some form of financial incentive was offered?
"In events, teams may work together with something like that," Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash was quoted as saying in a Dave Rodman article for nascar.com. "But whatever those arrangements are, are between the teams, so I don't really have any detail on what those arrangements are."
Menard is planning on running the full schedule this season in the Nationwide Series; the last time he did so, he finished sixth in the standings. Most, if not all, of the teams that were placed ahead of him and subsequently withdrew were not running a full schedule. However, this entire situation would have been averted if NASCAR did not allow teams to qualify for races that they have no intention of finishing.
NASCAR has received a lot of criticism lately because of the start and park teams, but so far has done nothing about the situation. There have been a plethora of rule changes in the last few weeks, perhaps its time for something to be done about this situation.
A couple of suggestions would be for NASCAR to start fining teams that start a race and then park the car without a legitimate problem so that its not so financially rewarding; another solution would be to decrease the payoff for starting a race and not reward the entire amount unless a car actually finishes the race. Naturally, there will be extenuating circumstances where some cars are involved in crashes, but those situations can be taken into account.
It's high time that NASCAR did something about the start and park teams because it decreases the competition level, which is bad for the drivers, or good depending on how one looks at the situation, but in the long run, start and park teams are cheating the fans out of good racing.
On the other hand, NASCAR sometimes needs the start and park teams in order to have a full field in the Nationwide Series, so its likely not much will be done. But once a race is underway and the start and park teams withdraw, there is no longer a full field of cars on the track, so what difference does it make if they start the race with one?
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