September 5, 2009
By Nick Blake
The feel good story that is the continuation of 67 year old Morgan Shepherd’s career may soon be coming to a sad ending.
This past Wednesday, Shepherd let all of his employees go from his race team, Faith Motorsports, and at his race shop. All but two people, a shop mechanic and an at track assistant, were told on Monday that they could not go on, especially after failing to qualify for the past three races.
The bitterness must be eating at Morgan; he is typically a decent qualifier, starting a season best 10th at Daytona in July. But bad runs at Michigan, Bristol, and now Montreal, has put him on his longest raceless streak of the season. And to miss those races, on back-to-back-to-back weekends, takes a toll on your team’s income.
Actually, you don’t get any income as far as race earnings go, because you didn’t race. You don’t get paid to show up, and in case you haven’t already learned, NASCAR isn’t cheap. The entry fee for a Nationwide series car is about $20,000. That covers your entry, practice, qualifying, happy hour, and the race itself. To miss three races in a row, that puts you in an estimated $60,000 hole.
To not get anything but a tad bit of sponsorship money in return, it put Shepherd in an even deeper hole. That was just too much to overcome, and as a result, he had to let his staff know that he couldn’t go on with them anymore.
“I had to let just about everybody go on Monday when we got back,” A dejected Shepherd said. “We will go to Atlanta and I will just have to do it pretty much by myself. We just can’t pay people when we don’t have anything coming in.”
He’s right about that. It’s easy to tell he gave it his best effort with what he had. No start and parks, up to the past three events, he has run every race this season, with a best of 13th at Las Vegas, and two other lead lap finishes. Running 22nd in driver points, you would think he is solidly locked into the top 30 in the owners standings, but unfortunately, no. The amount of teams that run a revolving number of developmental drivers and Cup drivers take up the bulk of the owners standings. Examples include, the Kevin Harvick Inc. #33, driven by Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart, Ron Hornaday, J.R Fitzpatrick, Kelly Bires, and Ryan Newman.
Even some start and park teams are well within the Top 30. Braun Racing’s #10 is an occasional start and parker, with Chad Blount behind the wheel. As is JTG Daugherty Racing, who ran out of funding with Michael McDowell, and now start and parks with Coleman Pressley and Chase Miller behind the wheel. (Sponsorship was found to run the two road course races with Marcos Ambrose.)
The number of teams like those is so great, that it just bumped Morgan Shepherd completely out of the Top 30, and he’s too far back to make ground. Now, after being able to run every race he’s ran to completion, it’s likely that Morgan will have to start and park at Atlanta, granted that he even makes the race in the first place. It’s a hefty entry list too, with 48 teams attempting to qualify. With even less crew members than before, it’s a tall order to even get to Atlanta, let alone qualify.
This isn’t the end for Morgan, the battle must go on, and even at 67, he’s not ready to trade in the steering wheel for the roller skates just yet. In the past, he’s received assistance from Kevin Harvick (Some cars in Shepherd’s fleet are older KHI cars.) and Tony Stewart. In one race Stewart paid Shepherd’s tire bill so he could race.
Plus, there are some fans that always find a way to come into money to help a poor fellow out. Anything is possible in NASCAR. A week ago, it would be unthinkable to believe that Bobby Labonte would be driving for The Racer’s Group, while Erik Darnell, who only has two Truck series wins to his credit, would take over his ride in seven races this season. Regardless of the facts, it happened. All you can do is pick up the pieces and salvage what’s left. That is all that Morgan Shepherd can do now.
In a press release on his team’s website, Shepherd’s last quote was, “There’s no quit in us, but we can only go so far without money. We’ll see after Atlanta what we are able to do.”
He’s hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst.
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