Tony George came up with the idea with IRL to cut costs and encourage more American drivers into Open Wheel. While his success can be debated and I know some people consider him the Anti Christ, I’d ask him first.

You are missing my point! When Nascar created testing limits,meaning each car got to say test 8 times a year, a lot of teams started to run team cars to get the extra test dates!A two car team got 16 test dates!

Jr Johnson was one of the early ones to do this, Darrell Waltrip – Neil Bonnett! His team was one of the first in the modern era to do this, because of Nascars testing policy! Nascar had a prevouis policy that you could test all you wanted to, that way any teams were not limited to testing!If Nascar stayed with the existing testing policy you would not have seen the large 2 to 5 car teams!
I know from 1972 to 1990s their were not many two car teams!
And dont think for a minute things cannot change back to single car teams, in 1960s to 1971, Holman Moody, Pettys, Ray Nichels,ran muti car teams!Then in 1972 or the modern era most teams were single car teams,and the owners were racers first, businessmen second!

As far as Nascar going own without say the Pettys and Woods you are right it will go own, but we are in unique economic times I sense a coming decline of Nascar, this past season a preview!

In my opinion its not a fair comparison to say that heritage racing teams had some kind of advantage over these two behemoths. As a matter of fact, that bears repeating, both Petty and Wood Brothers bent over backwards to help these newcomers.

You are correct. The money grabbers that run Nascar won’t miss anyone that can’t or won’t put more money in their pockets.

However, what we are currently seeing, looks eerily similar to what was CART in the early 1990’s. The domination of the sport by a few owners, escalating costs and a greedy sanctioning body equal big trouble for everyone involved who isn’t already a millionaire many times over.

As for Junior Johnson I think the divorce had a lot to do with him closing the doors of the team too.

Mr. ED- I certainly agree with you that the legacy of the Pettys both on and off track is one that is not really rivaled. The Victory Junction Gang Camp is an extrordinary place, and they do a lot of great work. And of course none of that would have been possible without the hardwork and dedication of Kyle Petty, a man who is very well respected throughout the garage.

Craig Duff- The cars that come out of the big teams in this sport are second to none, and the management and drivers at those organizations are right up there. You wont find a better team owner or employer than you will in either Rick Hendrick or Richard Childress. Just because they are big teams does not mean they are not classy organizations.

Charles- Don’t think for one second that the Pettys or Woods wouldn’t trade places with Hendrick, Roush or Gibbs. They have storied pasts, but they want to make money just like everyone else does. No majority team owner in this sport (with the exception of Boston Ventures at Petty) got rich on Wall Street. And as for the rising costs, NASCAR did not put a gun to anyones head and tell them they had to go out and get corporate sponsors, that is something they did on their own. Any trouble any team has today is of their own making.

I would agree with you that it was the independent team owner who built this sport, but they are not the ones who run it today. No matter your feelings on that, NASCAR won’t suffer without either of these teams around. Teams with great histories like these two have closed down over the last 30 years and NASCAR has continued. It is sad and unfortunate, but a fact of life.

They lasted in NASCAR for almost 50 years, but NASCAR has made the big mistake by limited testing in the early nineties, what this allowed was the advent of the two, three or up to 5 car teams, by doing this it allowed many of business people who made their money outside the sport to come in the sport! Now you see all these large money and teams control NASCAR. That has deluted NASCAR!

The Pettys, Woods, Bud Moore, JR Johnson were NASCAR team owners and made most of their money racing, not on Wall Street! It was these independent team owners that made NASCAR, and now big money is surely going to take away from it!

(edited by T.C. : easy on the all CAPS Charles)

The domination of this sport by 4 organizations, who have unlimited resources from outside sources, has turned Nascar into a spending contest.

Now, Major League Baseball is still able to have an interesting product, even with the free spending Yankees and Red Sox, with different champions on an annual basis. The NFL, with a salary cap, presents a playoff field that changes every year and may even feature a Dolphin team that has rebounded from 1-15 in less than a year.

Nascar, on the other hand, has done nothing to manage the competition issues that have hurt the sport and limited the number of organizations that can compete.

It’s easy to blame those who couldn’t keep up. However, think about this for a moment. As this trend has played out, how in the world do you think they could have kept up with Roush, Hendrick and company? Simply moving to Charlotte means little. Hendrick and Roush will still hire away your best people and swoop in and take your sponsors whenever they feel like it or want to expand to a fifth, sixth or seventh team.

FYI, a clarification on Junior Johnson. He did not fail. He got sick of it and sold his team to Brett Bodine. He saw where this thing was going and had enough. At least Richard and the Wood Brothers stayed in it because its their family business and its what they love to do.