No end in sight for struggles of non-Cup affiliated Nationwide Series teams

Related story: Overspending not an option for Nationwide Series owner Jay Robinson

The 2010 Nationwide Series season will mark the 10th anniversary of dominance by Sprint Cup teams in NASCAR’s No. 2 series.

It’s been since 2000 that a non-Cup affiliated team won the series championship. That year, Jeff Green won the title for ppc Racing, a team that has since been swallowed by up by another organization.

Since then, Cup teams and Cup-affiliated have completely dominated the Nationwide Series. In 2009, Joe Gibbs Racing won the drivers title with Kyle Busch, and not a single independent team won a race.

JGR won 14 races, Roush Fenway Racing won 10, JR Motorsports (which has an affiliation with Hendrick Motorsports) four,
Richard Childress Racing two, Kevin Harvick Inc. two (affiliated with RCR), Hendrick Motorsports one, Phoenix Racing one and JTG Daugherty Racing (affiliated with Michael Waltrip Racing) one.

The independent teams no longer see beating Cup and Cup-affiliated teams as their goal. They simply want to beat each other.

“It’s tough, especially when you’re a single-car, privateer team without official manufacturer backing – which seems to be going away – to come in here and compete with the Jack Roushs, the Richard Childress’ and the Joe Gibbs’,” RAB Racing owner Robbie Benton says.

And it’s likely only going to get worse for the non-Cup teams, Baker Curb Racing co-owner Gary Baker said. Baker Curb is close to signing a sponsorship package with a Sprint Cup driver, a necessity these days.

“The gap, frankly, has widened a little bit,” Baker says. “That’s why we know we’ve got to go get a Cup driver for one of our cars on our team because NASCAR so favors the Cup drivers in Nationwide racing.”

Baker calls it a “race-weekend advantage,” as Cup drivers have more time on the track during Cup/Nationwide combination weekends because of Sprint Cup practice time.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” Baker says. “The cards are so stacked against you, you need a multicar team, and, ideally, one of those drivers will be a Cup guy. Otherwise, you give up so much in qualifying and practice.”

Most Nationwide qualifying sessions are held the day of the race but shortly after Cup practice.

“We’re sitting there scratching our heads or our fannies, trying to figure out what the track’s doing,” Baker says. “You’ve almost got to have one Cup guy coming back, going, ‘OK here’s what the track’s doing and what changes need to be to go qualify.’”

The playing field is more level on standalone weekends, but there are only nine of those on the schedule.

Why do Cup teams enjoy such an advantage? It comes down to money. Cup teams have a bigger pool of money with which to work, partly because Cup drivers command a larger sponsorship price.

And Cup teams can often operate their Nationwide cars at a loss and absorb the cost because of their large Cup budgets. The Cup teams provide chassis and engines to their Nationwide counterparts, with many Nationwide teams getting the leftovers.

Independent Nationwide teams operate on a much smaller scale, with many fewer employees. That means smaller teams need one employee to often do two jobs.

Cup organizations that field Nationwide cars can have the same number of employees on their Nationwide teams, but those employees may not have to build chassis and engines or hang bodies – because their Cup teams do that work.

Veteran driver Kenny Wallace says there are four categories of owners in the Nationwide Series: The Cup teams, the B teams that operate on a budget slightly less than Cup teams, the C teams that operate on a budget of around $2 million and the handful of start-and-park teams.

And that caste system has gotten worse over the years, Wallace said. The explosive growth of NASCAR over the last decade has led to the disparity, Wallace said.

“Most sports grow by percentages, like a half a percent or one percent,” Wallace says. “We’ve quadrupled.”

In 1989, Wallace won rookie of the year in what was then known as the Busch Series. His team operated on a budget of $250,000. Now, good independent teams have a $6 million budget.

Wallace said NASCAR, drivers and teams are all guilty of overspending. As an example, Wallace noted that a good pit box costs around $100,000, and since it is so big, teams have to pay someone else to transport it. Teams used to build and transport them themselves, Wallace said.

“We have literally done it to ourselves,” Wallace says. “We’re guilty of it, and so is NASCAR.”

The situation won’t get any better in the short term, for two reasons. One, the U.S. economy is still struggling, and sponsorship is hard to find. Two, the new Nationwide car will be fielded four times in 2010 and full time in 2011, meaning teams will have to convert their fleets over the next year.

“You’ve got a whole bunch of teams in the Nationwide Series right now that are trying to figure out, ‘When are we going to build this car?’” Wallace says.

Who’s going to pay for it?

“I’ve been involved on the business side of this sport since 1978, looking for sponsorships as far as race tracks are concerned – Bristol and Nashville,” Baker says. “I’ve been involved in it since 1984 from the standpoint of sponsorships on NASCAR cars. It has never even come close to being this difficult in the past. Never. This is by far the hardest [it] has ever been.”

Why? Because corporate America is scared, and many companies have the tendency to “stick their head in the sand,” Baker says.

“There’s plenty of blame to go around, but it starts with the economy,” Baker says.

Baker is confident there are companies willing to spend marketing dollars, and he said businesses aren’t scared of NASCAR.

“We can make it on less money,” he says. “We run a pretty tight ship anyway. We’re not looking to build resort homes or buy Lear jets in our race budget. Our sponsor money goes on the track. Can we do it with less today? Yes, we can. It’s amazing how much the price of these packages has come down.”

And somehow, teams will have to find money to build the new cars. Those cars are based on the current Cup chassis, and that could separate the field even more, many say.

“It’ll separate the field for a while, from that standpoint,” says Mike Beam, competition director of Roush Fenway’s Nationwide operations. “Take some of the smaller teams; it’s going to be hard. They’re going to have to buy front springs and stuff like that that’s totally different than what they’re used to to make it work.

“I feel like that’s going to be a challenge for some of those guys.”

Why? Current Nationwide cars run with a front valence, which JGR crew chief Jason Ratcliff says is more forgiving. The front of the cars need to be as close to the ground as possible, but if teams miss it slightly, the valence simply rubs the track surface and wears off.

But with a splitter, like the one used in Cup, it has to be perfect.

“You’ve got to get to it, and you’ve got to stay at it,” Ratcliff says. “With the bump stops [used in Cup], it’s a lot easier to achieve that than it is with a spring [to be used in Nationwide].”

Teams will need to buy new springs to make it work, Ratcliff said, and spring technology has gotten out of hand. Cup teams have more resources to work out the new car’s setup, and independent teams will have to figure it out on the fly.

“You’re not going to get something they built two years ago and go outrun something they built yesterday,” Jay Robinson Racing owner Jay Robinson says. “It’s not going to happen. To go get a used Cup car and convert it is to build an inferior product that’s not going to be competitive no matter what you do.”

Smaller teams have less time and technology to improve what is an “inferior product” to begin with.

“Well, the gap widens,” Robinson says. “There’s no way around it.”