The economic crisis has sent wholesale changes throughout NASCAR during this past offseason. 

In addition to the normal "musical chairs" of drivers going from one team to another, we have had teams merge to cut costs,  some valuable testing eliminated, and the worst of them all is the change to the Budweiser Shootout format.

Some teams have had to lay off a large number of employees in order to cut costs to stay afloat.  Others teams have decided to merge with one another, and there are some that as of today, are not financially able to run the full schedule. 

While I am hopeful that negotiations currently taking place are successful enough for all teams to run all 36 races, it is possible that some of the teams will not be able to do so.

And now let's talk about the formatting changes to the annual Bud Shootout.

This is the best way to kick off Speedweeks at Daytona, and it made winning a pole during previous season mean something; you had to earn your way into this event.  Now all you have to do is be one of the top-six for one of the car manufacturers, or you can get in as a wild card from each automaker. 

NASCAR, please change it back. Some of the "thrill" is gone.