The Ever Changing Landscape of NASCAR

As we get geared up for the 2009 Sprint Cup racing year, we can’t help but notice the changing landscape of NASCAR. Long gone are the days of the single car owner, the two car owner and the owner/driver. No, today is the day of the “Super Teams”. Teams like Hendrick Motorsports, Rousch/Fenway, Gibbs Racing, Petty Enterprises (Petty/Gillette Evernham Motorsports (GEM)), Earnhart/Ganassi Racing, Hall of Fame (HOF)/Yates Racing, etc. are now dominating the garage.

Not only are we looking at the merging teams, but we are also now looking at a new economic stress that NASCAR has never really had to fight before. The closest thing may the “Gas Crunch” in the late 70s. Now we are looking at possibly having the “Big 3″ automakers potentially not making it though the season. Jeff Gordon was quoted as saying that the COT was a brilliant move by NASCAR, either by foresight or by luck. It is true that because of the development of the COT, NASCAR does control its own destiny and is no longer dependent on the manufacturers anymore. To be quite honest, what is left for the manufacturers to do? About the only thing that they have control over is their logo that gets stuck to the front of this shoebox. Unless there is going to be a change there, they can take a back seat. Brian France is the Czar of all that is NASCAR.

What else is going on? Well, pretty much every track on the circuit is now owned by either the Frances or Bruton Smith. I know that they have owned most of the tracks for a while now, but Smith has expanded his kingdom even more during the last season. With his new power, Smith has brought up the notion of instituting a “blackout” policy for races that don’t sell out. This is taken right out of the National Football League’s playbook. What a time to even propose that. I predict that this year, attendance will be down at all tracks. With the consumer economy the way it is, and with the tens of thousands of job losses in the month of January alone, I can’t see the same number of fans making the travel to the tracks, even if the race is in their own back yard. I know that every time I go to a race, I spend money. Right now there are a great number of people who simply can’t afford to do that.

On a separate note, Tony Stewart has left the nest of Joe Gibbs and moved into the wacky world of car ownership with StewartHaas Racing. They are bucking the trend with one of the few two car teams in the series. We’ll have to wait and see how Stewart and Ryan Newman perform as the season gets started.

I mentioned Petty Enterprises earlier, but let’s take a closer look at this merger. Not only did Petty move their operations from Level Cross, NC to Charlotte (Mooresville) last season, but now pretty much close up shop. First they sold majority ownership in Petty Enterprises to Boston Ventures religating Richard Petty to a minority ownership role. Now they merge for a second time in less than a year with GEM right as Ray Evernham is leaving. The Petty name withstood the merger, for namesake only. They also lose the one shining hope that Petty Enterprises has had in quite some time, Bobby Labonte, who makes the move to the newly formed team of HOF/Yates Racing.

Finally, I think you are going to see smaller fields throughout the season. You will have a ton of teams try to make the big ones for the payday alone. For example, Daytona 500, Charlotte 600, Indy 500, etc. are going to be big paydays and you will have teams bend over backwards to try and make those races, but I don’t think you are going to have many smaller teams make the trip across country to California, or even make the trip up north to Michigan or New York. I believe that unless the races are located near the Charlotte hub, you are not going to have 43 teams present unless NASCAR tries another trick like paying teams just to show up to preserve the image of the sport.

This will be an interesting year. Between the merging team storylines and the poor economy, it will be worth watching. NASCAR truly has a test ahead of them with sponsorship money, team expansion, bad economy, major auto manufacturers maybe pulling out of the sport and a potentially significant losses at the ticket booths across the nation. Stay tuned. More stories are sure to develop.