The Cost of Doing Business

The days of one car teams, (successful) owner operators and independents are over; NASCAR is expensive and the ever increasing cost of doing business becomes more evident as time goes on. Even in the last couple of seasons we have seen the biggest growth and implosion of a team in recent history, the introduction and implementation of the Car of Tomorrow and an increasing number of large teams without sponsorship.

One of the most prominent teams this season sturggling with sponsorship has been Yates Racing. Both the #38 and #28 cars are without full time sponsors. Kvapil’s car has been on the carousel of Roush sponsors and the last couple of weeks has sported a Ford sponsorship. Gilliland has been off and on with FreeCreditReport.com. Similarly Ganassi has had problems with sponsorship on the Dario Franchitti machine and rumors of a departure by Target, and DEI is running the #01 car unsponsored. This is just a short list of teams in the cup series running unsponsored, or without full time sponsorship, we’re not even talking about the Nationwide and Craftsman truck series. Not having a sponsor can mean lost revenues in the range of seven to eight figures, and that is a huge burden on an already cash strapped team.

The implementation of the COT and various other safety components throughout the three series have meant that old equipment is obsolete. They have been able to sell off cars to ARCA teams, but for literally pennies on the dollar. With the truck series running races in California, Talladega and Daytona means trucks that can only be run at two tracks and one very long trip. The once a season trips to Talladega and Daytona mean that teams are forced to build super speedway trucks that they cannot use anywhere else. A large expense, especially for those in the truck series where you are much more likely to find independent, low budget teams. In addition, the one trip to the California (Auto Club) Speedway means that they have to travel across the country to a race that not many fans show up to. The obvious solution to this? Race more at tracks nearby. For instance the currently unutilized Iowa Speedway. It is only about a 16 hour drive and they would have no problem selling the place out, much like they do in Mansfield.

One of the most notable events from a very busy season last year was the rapid buildup and then equally quick implosion of Ginn Racing, owned by real estate tycoon Bobby Ginn. In about a season and a half the team was able to transform a struggling MB2 into a winning program with Mark Martin. However by mid-season last year the team began to crumble and what was left was sold off to DEI. I know of at least one team who did business with Ginn prior to the implosion that was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout most of last season. Several lawsuits were even brought against Ginn by former employees who hadn’t been paid. This was the prime example of what can happen when a team is unsponsored and mismanaged.

These are just a few of the teams that have experienced trouble of late and surely there will be more to come as the economy weakens. All in all though, this is just the cost of doing business in an equipment and people heavy sport.

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