Long Term Health of NASCAR With Investors Coming In

By: Gregg A. Shultz, www.racefanvote.com

There are many things that happen in NASCAR now that have happened in the past and yet still get reported on as monumental events in the sport. Drivers changing teams that you would have never guessed, manufacturers dropping support or even race teams closing their doors completely. It’s all happened before.

The one thing that is different is the number of teams that are merging, selling part ownership to investors or selling out completely to companies who have never been involved in the sport. What’s even more unexpected is that these are not small, one-car teams involved in most cases.

There are not many teams left that are unencumbered by some sort of mutual partnership agreement, partial ownership deal or flat out the name on the building isn’t who owns it anymore situation.

In most cases the agreements are carefully thought out and offer a substantial boost to the team’s well-being, but all of this is still pretty new yet. Partnerships go bad on a daily basis in the real world and deals get sold to entities not of the partner’s choosing or in some cases, dissolved all together.

Imagine that one of the recently formed partnerships gets involved in a situation where there are irreconcilable differences and the business has to be liquidated. There will be no contracts honored, everyone gets a pinks slip and [insert company name here] is no more.

One of the closest examples of that is what happened with Ginn and their ‘merger’ with DEI. There were a lot of personnel as well as drivers left out in the cold on that deal and possibly it is something that could start happening even more with the infrastructure of the current business model developing in the sport.

Understanding the key focus of a competitive race team is simple. They need money to go fast. They go fast and they command more money and then they go faster and win more. The key focus of an investor or marketing company is to make money, period.

Their bottom line might not always agree with the bottom line of performance. How soon will there be an appreciable payoff for buying a 7 million dollar testing rig or wind tunnel? What is the immediate financial benefit to spending a couple of million dollars on testing? The fact is that there is no ‘immediate’ gain. A lot of race teams tested all season long and are just now beginning to see the benefits of it. Will an investment or marketing firm understand that?

Anyone who follows the sport knows that there are always teams that rise and fall as the normal ebb and flow of performance occurs. This is not limited to small teams, as we have even seen it with the ‘super teams’ especially with the implementation of the new style car. How patient will an investor be that is not as familiar with the sport?

It also applies that in the ‘business’ of NASCAR, not every team & driver expects to go out and run in the top 5 every week, nor do they need to in order to keep the race team operational. An investor may not see it the same way and may rather force out a popular veteran driver who is holding his own and put a different driver in the seat.

Some of this might be beginning to rear it’s ugly head with a driver who has a famous name in the sport who has been in the headlines recently as possibly being forced out of his ride. It’s just a rumor at this point, so I will not say any names, but I will say that there is a color of blue named after the [family’s] name.

It will be interesting to see over the next few years how the investor/race team partnerships fair and if it causes any big shake-ups or shutting doors when the money doesn’t flow as freely as originally hoped.

It takes a racer to know how a race team works [and profits] and the expectations of earnings. To repeat a popular saying in the garage area, to make a small fortune in NASCAR, start with a large one…
Let’s just hope that the marketing firms, investors and new partners in the sport understand that performance is still the key to success and will allow the ‘experts’ in racing to have their input. Making money is important, but it’s not the only thing that fuels our sport. The fans will vote with their dollars if there are too many changes made just for the sake of the bottom line.

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New or Old NASCAR Points System. Which Do You Like?

This is one of the topics that always fires up both sides, how the drivers rank in the points with the old system versus the new? Where would your favorite be right now under the old system and more importantly, you least favorite, where would he be?

The proponents of the Chase like the way that it prevents runaways coming to the end of the season as well as citing the fact that talking about the old system doesn’t matter anyway because it isn’t used anymore.

The purists or the old school fans thought that the points system was fine the way it was and if one driver managed to dominate the entire season, then so be it. He was just that good and deserved to be rewarded for how he performed the entire season.

One of the bonuses of the Chase is that it makes the last ten races more exciting, but does it also make the first 26 less important?

There has been talk that maybe some of the teams were ‘sandbagging’ throughout the regular season and waited to show their cards until after the Chase started.

If the drivers in the top spots aren’t worried about the competition that’s chasing them, they might not do that extra test or experiment with something that could make them better, because why? If you were Kyle Busch heading into the Chase, how much testing and experimenting would you think that you needed to do? Probably not much.

Not to say that it is simple to make the Chase, but that is the one thing that did hold constant from the old system to the new, that if you weren’t in the top 12 with ten races to go that you probably weren’t going to win the Championship no matter which system you were under.

It’s doubtful that anyone would ‘sandbag’ themselves to 13th though, but how important is 10 points for winning a race [or eight]? Just ask Kyle Busch.

That leads us to the statistics. Where would the drivers be under the old system versus the new? Look at the lists below and see what jumps out at you first.

New Points System (Current Points After Kansas)
1. Jimmie Johnson 5575
2. Carl Edwards 5565 -10
3. Greg Biffle 5545 -30
4. Jeff Burton 5454 -121
5. Kevin Harvick 5439 -136
6. Jeff Gordon 5432 -143
7. Clint Bowyer 5411 -164
8. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. 5385 -190
9. Matt Kenseth 5383 -192
10. Denny Hamlin 5332 -243
11. Tony Stewart 5320 -255
12. Kyle Busch 5264 -311

Old Points System (Points After Kansas)
1. Carl Edwards 4186
2. Jimmie Johnson 4111 -75
3. Kyle Busch 4062 -124
4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. 3863 -323
5. Jeff Burton 3828 -358
6. Greg Biffle 3825 -361
7. Kevin Harvick 3722 -464
8. Jeff Gordon 3653 -533
9. Tony Stewart 3605 -581
10. Denny Hamlin 3557 -629
11. Clint Bowyer 3517 -669
12. Matt Kenseth 3515 -671

Probably the first thing that you saw is that Kyle Busch under the old system would be 3rd instead of 12th only 124 points out of 1st even without any ‘bonus’ points.
The second thing that you probably noticed is that even though Dale Earnhardt, Jr. has catapulted up to 4th with the old system, he is 323 points behind 1st.
Currently he is 8th, but only 190 points back. Even the current 12th place Kyle Busch doesn’t have that big of a deficit that the 4th place does under the old system.

Under the old system it would be a lot more of a three-man race at this point in the season than it currently is.
Using the statistic that no driver 400 points out of 1st with 10 races left in the season had ever won the Championship, under the old system, 4th back was eliminated when the first race of the Chase began. I am not sure how popular that would have been now.

The one fact that remains is that no matter what the stats say, there will still be fans that want the old system back no matter how skewed it is heading to Homestead.

There can obviously be an argument made for either way, but so far this season it seems like NASCAR got it right. Even if your favorite driver isn’t up in the top 5, he still has a chance, which is something that might not be if the Chase didn’t exist.
One thing is for sure that it isn’t over and if Kyle Busch still has a mathematical chance to come back with 7 races to go then anyone can. It’s a long shot for any driver to win the Championship, so no one is saying that it’s easy, but your driver still has a chance if he’s in the top Chase. Under the old system… not so much.

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Read Vote and Listen Top 5 Best and Worst of Kansas

The third race of the Chase provided us with a mix of good and bad or known here as the Best and Worst. We will cover some of the highs and lows and give you a chance to vote your picks after reading some facts associated with each choice.

The Best

1. Jimmie Johnson maintaining his Championship form
The no. 48 car started out on top, ran well all day and held off a hard-charging Carl Edwards for his 5th win of the season and 1st in the Chase.
If he goes on to win the championship would be the first driver to win three in a row since Cale Yarborough did it in ’76, ’77 & ’78. Yarborough is the only driver to pull it off so far in the history of the sport.
A driver winning two championships in a row has been accomplished 12 times since 1956 where Buck Baker was the first to get 2 championships [1956 & 1957] back to back.

2. Greg Biffle still in contention with a 3rd place finish at Kansas
The pilot of the no. 16 car fielded by Roush/Fenway Racing is still vying to be the first driver in history to win Championships in all three of the top series in NASCAR, Truck, Nationwide & Cup.
Biffle ran up front all day, but faded just a little towards the end. He managed a last lap pass on Jeff Gordon just before the line to move into 3rd, but was not in contention for his 3rd win in a row. He sits solidly 3rd in points only 30 points out of the top spot. The next driver behind him is Jeff Burton 91 Back.

3. Matt Kenseth coming back from a lap124 spin to finish 5th
After Casey Mears came up and tapped the back bumper of Kenseth on lap number 124, the driver of the no. 17 DeWalt Ford did an incredible job keeping his car controlled through the spin and avoiding damage. After a quick trip to pit road for 4 new tires and fuel, Matt drove his way back in contention and managed a 5th place finish. He is 9th in points 192 out of 1st.

4. A.J. Allmendinger pads his stock car resume
After the announcement that A.J. would not return to drive for Team Red Bull Racing in 2009, the best thing that the open wheel notable could do for his future in NASCAR was to race his way to a top 10 finish in what could possibly be his last race in the no. 84 car. He did just that running up front most of the day ending it out in 9th.

5. The closing laps between Edwards and Johnson
After attempting a dive-bomb pass on the inside of Johnson, Carl Edwards said that he was expecting to hit the wall in a move that he had practiced in the video games, but wasn’t expecting it [the wall] to slow him down as much as he did. Johnson managed to get back past Edwards coming to the checkers earning the win with Edwards remaining in second.
The finishing order at Kansas in the top 3 is also the top 3 drivers in points respectively with Greg Biffle rounding it out 3rd.

The Worst

1. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. suffering his mid-race handling issues once again
In a continuing theme, the no. 88 car ran decent through the first half of the race and began to fade at the mid-point. Any adjustments made to try to improve the handling of the car were neutral as he only managed to maintain a position just inside the top 15 up to the conclusion of the race. With an average finish in the Chase of 14th , hopes of Earnhardt getting his first Cup Championship are not looking good.
Even with a lackluster finish of 13th, he did manage to gain of one spot in points to 8th, 190 points out of the lead.

2. Tony Stewart dropping in points and still winless for 2008
In what could have been retaliation for a pit road incident, Tony Stewart got into the no. 83 car driven by Brian Vickers and spun down into the infield grass doing damage to his front splitter. After a lengthy pit stop to repair the damage, Stewart went 7 laps down finishing 40th, dropping 4 positions to 11th in points. Two decent finishes in the first two Chase races and a dismal race at Kansas is probably not how Stewart wanted to close out his JGR/Home Depot career in his fames no. 20 car. The frustrations are liable to come out even more as the season finishes out.

3. Juan Pablo Montoya disqualified from the pole
Rear shock pressure being to high was the verdict for why the no. 42 car’s pole winning qualifying time was disallowed. You might vote this one as the number 1 worst because it was good to see Montoya with his first pole or for the fact that they were cheating.
In an interview with Montoya after he won the pole, but prior to the disqualification, he proclaimed that his crew chief was extremely nervous and apparently rightly so, but for a reason different than Montoya assumed.

4. Joe Gibbs Racing falling to the bottom of the Chase ranks
Despite Denny Hamlin placing 9th at Loudon and 11th most recently at Kansas, his 38th place finish in the 2nd Chase race in Dover has him relinquished to 10th in the points. Just behind him is Tony Stewart 11th and last place, Kyle Busch in 12th. [Kyle gets his own ‘worst’ below].
The wheels have come off of the JGR & Toyota machine big time so soon into the ‘playoffs’ with the biggest surprise being the no. 18 car. If there is another scenario that makes the point better as to how difficult the top level of stock car racing is, there is no telling what that would be. It is the epitome of hero to zero only three races into the Chase.

5. Kyle Busch’s mechanical issues continue shutting the door to the Championship.
For the 3rd race in a row, the regular season points leader going into the Chase, Kyle Busch, showed mechanical issues early at Kansas.
Thinking that the fuel delivery system was malfunctioning, the team had planned to change the carburetor under yellow. It was reported that the team had found something in the intake, but Busch denied that after the race.
Whether they discovered the root of issue or not, the no. 18 car was never a factor in the race and has all but mathematically eliminated himself from the championship.

Any time that we feature a Kyle Busch comment, we have to include it in both the ‘Best & Worst’ column [for voting only] or we get 2,000 emails asking us to do so. Vote away!

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