Cup teams cut back on driver-development programs due to economy

By Lee Montgomery - Associate Editor

Monday, January 19, 2009

JR Motorsports' Landon Casill made 18 NASCAR Nationwide Series starts in 2008.

Scott Boehm
Getty Images

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The struggling U.S. economy is taking its toll on the driver-development programs of many NASCAR Sprint Cup teams.

Nationwide Series driver Bryan Clauson was to run the full schedule, but Earnhardt Ganassi Racing shut down its team because of sponsorship issues. Plans for Landon Cassill to run a handful of Nationwide races for JR Motorsports this year now are up in the air.

Michael Waltrip Racing wants to run Josh Wise in the Nationwide Series, but because its No. 00 Cup team isn’t fully sponsored, he could be on the sidelines.

Cale Gale ran 13 Nationwide races for Kevin Harvick Inc. last year, but the team has had to replace all its sponsors for 2009, and the search has reduced Gale’s schedule.

Roush Fenway Racing development driver Erik Darnell, who ran the full Truck series schedule last year, is is running only 15 Nationwide Series events this year, but he’s thankful for what he does have.

“I'll tell you, right now, it's extremely tough to get into a driver development program, something like that,” Darnell said. “You've got to be very good in your respective divisions, and sometimes that's not even good enough. You have to be in the right place at the right time and catch somebody's eye high up in the world or high up in the sport, and it's a tough thing to do. If you are lucky enough to do that, you have to go out there and perform in front of them and show them that you can do it.

“I feel very fortunate to be where I'm at right now because Roush has given me the time to develop in the Truck series. I've got to run there the last three years, and now I'm getting the opportunity to run in the Nationwide series, and I feel like I'm a product of the driver development deal, and I just feel very fortunate to be where I'm at right now.”

As teams scramble to simply find enough money to race right now, money for the future doesn’t exist.

“That's probably one of the areas in the sport that has been affected the most by what we're going through to today, and that is driver development and the ability to get rookies, new guys, track time,” team owner Michael Waltrip said. “We bit the bullet, and we ran Josh in some Nationwide races last year hoping to be able to acquire sponsorship. We were never able to do that. We certainly have plans for Josh to run races this year, as well, but we can't run cars without sponsors. We're faced with running David [Reutimann's Cup] car with part of the season unsponsored.

“We're looking aggressively for sponsors for David's Cup car, and if we're able to accomplish that, we're also going to look for stuff for Josh. But as of now, we don't have anything that we can promise him we'll do other than keep him on retainer and, hopefully, be able to stir up some cash so we can race him some more.”

Gale will run a handful of races for KHI after showing improvement in the Nationwide Series last year.

“As far as the development side of it goes, I kind of got out of that business to be honest with you,” team owner Kevin Harvick said. “Cale kind of fell in at the right time and has done a good job. Unfortunately, he'll probably be the one that suffers the most from everything we've had to do from adjusting the economy and everything that we've had to do to get the sponsors for the cars and the races that we have.

“His races will come down a little bit. But he's still doing a good job, still working hard in the shock room and doing the things he needs to do. He's going to run his Late Model stuff frequently next year. Hopefully, everything turns, and right now you've just got to go with what you can get.”