Jeff Gluck: There is no more Silly Season
COMMENTARY
We gather here today to pay tribute to an old pal, one that made NASCAR infinitely more interesting and entertaining in the midsummer months: Silly Season, as we know it, is dead.
Like the greatest friends, it always used to come along at just the right time. Just when the racing season was hitting a lull, Silly Season showed up to throw the possibility of your favorite driver switching teams or seeing him join forces with a guy you love to boo.
Driver movement seemed mostly restricted to that certain time of year – adding a little drama to a time when there isn’t much – and by the time the Chase For The Sprint Cup cutoff rolled around, nearly all of the dust had settled.
No more. Silly Season grew into an unrecognizable and deformed beast in 2008, taking on a new shape and meaning.
It began last spring and has never stopped, which has cost Silly Season its identity: There is no defined time period that allows us to call it a season, nor is it the least bit funny.
The serious reality is drivers who lose their rides now may not get another one. No one is laughing about that.
Bobby Labonte, a Cup champion earlier this decade, could begin the season without a full-time ride. In the short span since he secured a release from the No. 43 car at Petty Enterprises, opportunities have mostly dried up.
An open seat like Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s No. 41 car – which once appeared a likely destination for Labonte – now seems more like a mirage than an operation about to enter 36 races.
And there’s an even greater emphasis on keeping the ride a driver already has. Elliott Sadler was booted from his job at Gillett Evernham Motorsports, then threatened a lawsuit in order to force the team to honor his contract.
It did. But in the past, might Sadler simply just have joined another team?
Three of the most promising young drivers from last season – Regan Smith, AJ Allmendinger and Aric Almirola – likely could all end up in part-time seats this season.
Four of last year’s regular drivers – Kyle Petty, Scott Riggs, Dave Blaney and Joe Nemechek – might not drive at all this year, and not by choice.
Silly Season used to be described as “musical chairs,” which was actually a misnomer. Musical chairs is a game where seats are subtracted and someone gets left out. That wasn’t true until now.
The death of Silly Season doesn’t mean all driver movement will suddenly cease. Certainly, there could now be even more of a premium on performance – and owners won’t be shy about removing a driver to satisfy an unhappy sponsor.
But when that happens, the odds that said driver will land on his feet with another ride are getting smaller every day. Kind of takes the fun out of the whole thing, if you ask me.
Knowing this job could be the last one for those drivers who don’t fall into the “superstar” category will only bring more stress to the garage, a place that has grown increasingly unfriendly compared to when the mega-dollars and bright media spotlight weren’t around.
The economy is the primary suspect in Silly Season’s demise, but whether there can ever be a resurrection is unclear.
No one knows whether this is a temporary setback or a market correction where, even after money begins to flow back into the coffers of Fortune 500 companies, spending $20 million to sponsor a race car won’t seem like the best use of funds.
In the meantime, agents will continue to cancel vacations and drivers will look over their shoulders more often knowing that Serious Business occupies the spot where Silly Season used to stand.
