Competitors, other insiders disagree on future of Nationwide Series

NASCAR likes to tout what will be called the Nationwide Series this year as the No. 2 motorsports series in the United States. But there is no other racing series in the country quite like it.

Built on the short tracks in the Southeast, the division formerly known as the Busch Series has grown exponentially in its 26-year history and now boasts races in Mexico and Canada as well as the U.S.

Sprint Cup teams and drivers fill the series, boosting the talent to a major-league level. But therein lies many of the hidden problems.

Costs are at an all-time high, causing even the Cup teams to complain about the skyrocketing budgets. At the same time, Cup teams are finding it more difficult to sign sponsors for their Nationwide programs, which means independent teams are left looking for scraps and have to do more with less. But they are used to that, since they don’t have the resources of bigger Cup teams that often employ more than 10 times as many people.

The number of competitive independent teams has dwindled in recent years as several organizations have folded or been absorbed by other teams. Cup teams and drivers have dominated the last two seasons, with Cup drivers winning both championships and 65 of 70 races.

But changes appear to be afoot. NASCAR began talking to competitors in late 2006 about the future of the series. Though no official announcements are planned, one rule change could be not to award Nationwide points to drivers in the top 35 of the Sprint Cup standings, beginning in 2009. A similar application to the owner standings could be made, too.

Also, the series is likely to begin using the NASCAR-certified chassis – the car of tomorrow – in ’09, though with a different suspension package and body.

Would such changes level the field between Cup and independent teams? Will Cup teams continue to show interest? Will there be enough sponsors to pay the bills? Will independent teams be able to compete once again? Will tracks be able to sell enough tickets? Will TV viewers continue to tune in?

The answers are far from clear. Some insiders even think the series is fine just the way it is.

“Changing it would be a bad thing,” Texas Motor Speedway President and General Manager Eddie Gossage says. “I was asked, ‘Does the Busch Series need to be fixed?’ I said, ‘From what?’ The only thing bigger, more successful in American racing is the Cup series. So what do you want to fix it from?”

But there are plenty in the Nationwide garage who staunchly disagree. Gary Baker operated what is now Bristol Motor Speedway in the 1970s and ’80s and recently bought controlling interest in the former independent team Brewco Motorsports (now Baker Curb Racing).

“The old adage, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ well, brother, if there was ever an adage that was not applicable, it’s here,” Baker says of the series. “Right now, it’s broke, and it needs fixing.”

The Problem(s)

Though NASCAR won’t say publicly it dislikes the dominance by Cup drivers and teams, the sanctioning body clearly wonders whether it is good for the series. NASCAR President Mike Helton says it is a “fallacy” that NASCAR does not want a Cup driver like Carl Edwards or Kevin Harvick to win the Nationwide championship.

“Our mission is to create a series – and the best team wins,” Helton says. “That’s it. It’s pure, plain and simple. The rest of it simply does not matter.”

But is the series unbalanced between Cup teams and everyone else?

“If you asked that question of five people, you’d probably get three-and-a-half answers,” Helton says. “That’s not necessarily the question we ask ourselves as much as, ‘What is necessary to keep that series healthy? What’s the future hold? How do you get to those elements that will maintain the health of the Nationwide Series?’”

The first element, most agree, is the escalating operating costs in the series. Yes, having Cup competitors in the Nationwide Series is an issue, but it’s not viewed as the biggest problem.

Even Cup teams say the Nationwide Series has gotten too expensive. A budget approaching or even topping $10 million for a single season is not uncommon – at least for Cup teams.

“The No. 1 issue as far as I’m concerned … is the cost of this series,” says Will Lind, general manager of Richard Childress Racing’s Nationwide teams. “We’re struggling with sponsorship ourselves. It has nothing to do with Cup drivers. Yeah, that’s an issue, but the way this thing fell off over the last couple of years, we think it has more to do with the cost to run this series.

“This series just can’t absorb much change without it having an effect on everybody in here and a bigger effect on the smaller teams.”

Steve de Souza, who runs Joe Gibbs Racing’s Nationwide operation, is a former owner of an independent team, and he still has sympathy for the smaller teams. The level of competition is “incredible” in the series, de Souza says.

“But how do you blend that with the economics and make it a good series that people can afford to be in and stay in?” de Souza asks. “We’ve always said that people like us, Roush [Fenway Racing], Hendrick [Motorsports], the Cup teams that are here are going to be here. The teams we’re concerned about are stand-alone teams. This is how they make their living. They’ve got to find the economic sense to it, how they can be here without pouring money into it at tremendous losses.

“From a business side of it … a lot of our agenda is development of drivers, crew chiefs and engineers. Therefore, we can convince ourselves it’s more of an investment than a loss, if you will.”

NASCAR has tried to reduce costs, especially for 2008. It has “locked down” the brake package teams can use, meaning no expensive upgrades can be made. Also, NASCAR has mandated a carburetor spacer to reduce horsepower and lengthen engine life.

Competitors disagree on whether the rules will help. But as Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash says of the engine rule, it gives competitors a new option.

One money-saving idea is decreasing travel, says Fitz Racing owner Armando Fitz.

“The perfect example: We race on Saturday. Why do we have to be in Texas on Thursday? That’s stupid,” Fitz says. “You want to save us money? Make as many of these races one-day shows as you possibly can. If you cut my travel in half, you’ve saved me $200,000 to $300,000.”

The Nationwide car of tomorrow could help. Team Rensi Motorsports President Ronnie Russell says a Nationwide team could run a full season with five cars, but getting to that point will mean millions in development costs.

Team owner Jack Roush, who owns multiple Cup and Nationwide teams, calls the dilemma the “elephant that’s in the room.”
“That’s a huge problem,” Roush says. “How they’re going to have 50 healthy teams coming out the other side of it is beyond me.”
 
Paying The Bills   

Going hand in hand with increasing expenses is the rising costs of sponsorship. Teams are finding it more difficult to attract sponsorship. At least three teams that ran the full 2007 schedule – DDL Motorsports, McGill Motorsports and Carl A. Haas Motorsports – won’t be back for 2008.

“It’s not that you’re trying to overprice it and can’t sell it, it’s that you can’t sell it,” RCR’s Lind says. “We’re trying to sell a deal with a Cup driver. If we can’t sell a deal as one of the most successful teams out there with a name driver, how do those guys who haven’t won a race sell anything?”

How do they? They do it cheaper, Fitz says.

“That’s what kills us,” Fitz says. “They’re getting $7 million for their [Nationwide] program because they’ll say, ‘Hey, sponsor our [Nationwide] car, and I’ll give you an associate position on our Cup car. …We can’t do that. We’ve got to sell it for $5 million. Right out of the gate, we take a beating on the sponsorship. But the other option is you get out of racing.”

Fitz says independent teams have to be more “creative” with marketing and promotional programs, making sure their sponsors get everything out of the dollars they are spending.

Often, Cup drivers can’t make promotional appearances at a track because they are too busy with Cup duties. Nationwide-only drivers don’t have that problem.

But some independent teams have found sponsors who only want Cup drivers.

And that’s a problem, Baker Curb Racing’s Baker says. When talking about Cup drivers, Baker figures fans can name Tony Stewart’s Cup sponsor … or Jeff Burton’s … or Jimmie Johnson’s. But what about their Nationwide sponsor?

“They never can name them,” Baker says. “The equity in that driver is captivated practically 100 percent by that Cup sponsor. The [Nationwide] sponsor is getting zero out of it.”

Or, perhaps, sponsors simply aren’t willing to gamble on an unproven product.

“The sponsors that are sponsoring my Cup cars would certainly not sponsor a rookie driver at the same level,” Roush says. “I’ve got three or four senior Cup driver programs, and I don’t think any of my sponsors would join my rookie drivers. It would take a different sponsor with different goals to be in the [Nationwide] series with rookie drivers.”

Who’s To Blame?       

Team Rensi’s Russell blames media coverage for some of the sponsorship issues. Companies only go by what they see on television, Russell says, and when they only see Cup drivers, that’s what they want.

Team Rensi’s Bobby Hamilton Jr. finished sixth in points last year, but his TV coverage paled in comparison to Cup drivers, Russell says.

“They show us, but not near enough for a guy and this operation that’s this far up that is going up against these guys,” Russell says. “They show the 17th-place guy in the Cup series. When you go up to a sponsor, and they say, ‘I want a Cup guy.’ Why? They’ll tell you it ain’t necessarily because they’re winning races. It’s because the TV’s going to show them, and they’re going to get the interview after the race.”

Non-Cup drivers have little or no TV coverage, Russell says.

“If you talk about these people, that’s how you start forming their identity to the public, because the public doesn’t even know you exist,” Russell says.

Russell isn’t alone in his criticism of ABC and ESPN, the networks that covered the series last year. Other owners complained that even though ESPN said it was going to cover drivers across the board, the network focused on Cup drivers.

Jill Frederickson, ESPN’s coordinating producer for motorsports, disagrees.

“We certainly don’t approach the race with some preset notion that we have to cover some people over other people,” Frederickson says.

In covering some of the Busch stand-alone races last year, for example, Frederickson says ESPN highlighted some of the non-Cup drivers.

“We did call those races the ‘Opportunity 300s,’” Frederickson says. “Those were the opportunities where a lot of Cup drivers weren’t coming over, so we did talk about how David Gilliland won a race, and that’s what got him noticed and got him into Cup. …

“When the Busch-only guys become a story, we make it a story. But we don’t approach each individual race like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to make sure that we cover this person versus this person.’”

Finding Solutions       

What happens if Cup drivers aren’t awarded points? What if the number of Cup drivers running in the Nationwide Series dwindled? Would tracks be able to sell tickets?

Again, the answer depends on who you ask. Baker, who ran Bristol and the short track in Nashville, says there is a point of diminishing returns with the number of Cup drivers.

“Yeah, I wanted a few Cup drivers,” Baker says. “I was thinking in terms back then, three would have been fine. Five, I would have been ecstatic.”

But 20, as is often the case at stand-alone events, may be too many. Lenny Batycki, vice president and general manager of Gateway International Raceway, says having Cup drivers at an event is an “enormous” benefit.

But the sport has to protect its future, and Gateway does its part by highlighting younger drivers in its promotions.

“We expand it out here. We just don’t promote Carl [Edwards] and Clint [Bowyer] and both Davids [Ragan and Reutimann],” Batycki says of the Cup drivers running the full Nationwide Series. “It goes back to talking about Landon Cassill, talking about Bryan Clauson, talking about Joey Logano and helping them as well. From an independent track’s perspective, it’s smart business for us to start developing secondary names.

“Now, we just can’t hang our hat on Landon Cassill. We need to send two or three out there, and then in ’09 and ’10, those drivers become bigger, and we’ve helped develop their name, their sport.

“We have to be good shepherds of the industry and [have] everybody work together.”

TMS’ Gossage warns against depleting Nationwide fields of Cup drivers, saying his track wants as many Cup drivers as it can get.

If the number of Cup drivers in a Nationwide race were cut in half, Gossage says, TV ratings and attendance would drop, which would mean smaller payouts to teams.

Perhaps, Gossage says, a track might not be willing to host such a series.

“It could be that some tracks would tell NASCAR, ‘I can’t pay that anymore. It has to be less,’” Gossage says. “Or, ‘I can’t host a Nationwide race any longer.’”

Some of NASCAR’s proposed changes could help with costs and sponsorship issues. If no driver points were awarded to Cup drivers, teams with Nationwide-only drivers would move up in the standings and collect more season-ending points-fund money.

“The Carl Edwardses and the [David] Reutimanns, they really don’t bother us at all,” Russell says. “They have committed to our season. Everybody else that comes over and may finish in front of us, they’re not running for driver points. Therefore, why do they get the points? We need those points.”

The points-fund money, Russell says, is “just like having another associate sponsor.”

Baker would like to see a more equitable split of points-fund and TV money, weighted more toward independent Nationwide teams. What money Cup teams earn from the Nationwide Series is “petty cash,” Baker says.

“It boils down to money,” Baker says. “They come in with easy pickings. It’s definitely a David-and-Goliath thing every time they come on the track. Why? We are a team of 40-something employees trying to race against teams of 500-something employees.

“Our guys may be Supermen, but they can’t overcome the hours and expertise of a team 10 or 15 times their size can bring to the table.”

Since the Nationwide Series is widely seen as a development series, more needs to be done to help teams, says Braun Racing owner Todd Braun.

“At what point are promoters and NASCAR going to step up and realize that these series – the truck series and the Nationwide Series – are investments they’re making into the Cup series?” Braun says. “They don’t want to look at it as an investment. They want the same thing. They don’t want there to be any high schools, they don’t want there to be any colleges, they don’t want there to be any semipro baseball teams. They just want everybody to show up in the major leagues and race and everybody make a bunch of money.

“They don’t want to put any investment back in anything. They want to take the cream off the top and let everybody else worry about how the cream gets there.”

• Mentioned Drivers:
• Carl Edwards