Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
Here is my latest offering that was in today’s newspaper followed by an addition to the column after the article.
Tomorrow’s race at Daytona will mark the halfway point in the NASCAR season, with only eight races left to “The Chase” - a 10-race shootout between the top 12 in points at the end of the previous 26 races in the regular schedule.
One driver not making the trip to Daytona is last year’s Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti as Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) ceased operation of the team’s No. 40 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Dodge driven by Franchitti due to a lack of sponsorship funding.
“This is a difficult decision for (co-owner) Felix and I that did not come without its share of anguish,” said team owner Chip Ganassi in an official press release earlier in the week.
“In this tough business environment, continuing to run the car without proper funding, has become increasingly difficult.”
If you recall, I have written about the possible sponsorship problems that teams outside of the top 35 of owner points may face and this move by CGRFS is proof positive that making each and every race is important in keeping sponsors and generating interest from new ones.
The blame cannot be laid solely on Franchitti either. CGRFS has had significant perormance issues the last few years.
The lack of performance and not consistently making every race has not been beneficial in luring prospective sponsors to CGRFS, especially for the No. 40 car.
With sponsorship for a top-flight Cup team in the mid- $20-million US range, one can see why sponsors are a little apprehensive in dolling out that kind of money to a team that did not qualify for two races, has not finished higher than 22nd, is 40th in owner points and had a substitute driver for five others while Franchitti sat out with a broken ankle.
At this point in the season, a lot of people are starting to watch what drivers are doing for next year — are they staying with their teams or are they moving to another? — it is commonly referred to as ’silly season’. Case in point, Tony Stewart. Rumours about what he’s doing next year are swirling around faster than the car he drives on the track each weekend and it is getting to be a little ’silly’.
But what people should be watching out for now are not what the drivers are doing, but what the sponsors are doing because if you don’t have a sponsor, you can’t operate a competitive team even if your driver is two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart.
I have a feeling it will be the sponsors deciding which team they want to put their money with that determines where drivers end up next year and not the other way around.
Richard Childress already has a driver-less sponsored car for next year. Who do you think will end up driving it? My guess isn’t Tony Stewart. But you never know, that’s why its called ’silly season’.
Enjoy the race tomorrow, and listen for any ‘firecracker’ sponsorship announcements over the next few weeks, because those just might determine who is driving where next year.
ADDITION: What I really should have said, but didn’t as it was more implied than anything else was that the way the economy is going - especially with the ‘R’ word hanging heavy in the air - NASCAR teams may be forced to find more than one or two sponsors (like Jr did with AMP and National Guard) in order to get the capital needed to fund a competative team as no one sponsor may put up the full amount needed to compete. Jack Roush has been doing this for years.
This post was originally published in the Hamilton Spectator.
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