Less is more: Three cars instead of four now the model for Sprint Cup success

The magic number for Sprint Cup teams used to be four.
 
That was the number of cars multicar organizations were trying to reach, the overwhelming belief being that four cars and four teams were the ideal number for an operation to maximize its efforts and reach the pinnacle of success.
 
Hendrick Motorsports, the measuring stick for Sprint Cup teams, has four teams. Roush Fenway Racing had four, and then expanded to five before it was forced to drop one this year to meet NASCAR’s team-cap rule.
 
But that number might be on the cusp of changing.
 
Three might be the new magic number, especially with Richard Childress Racing on the verge of blowing the four-team theory out of the water.
 
Two years ago, RCR had a strong three-car team, putting all three of its drivers in the Chase For The Sprint Cup in 2007 and 2008.
 
Then, last year, it added a fourth car for new driver Casey Mears.
 
The results were a disaster.
 
The entire RCR operation suffered, going winless for only the third time since 1981 and failing to put any of its drivers in the Chase.
 
RCR added a fourth team and hired Mears because it had a new sponsor in General Mills. It dropped its fourth team and released Mears when sponsor Jack Daniel's decided not to return this season.
 
The result?
 
RCR has bounced back with a vengeance, nearly winning the first two races of the season. After two races, RCR’s Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer are atop the point standings and Jeff Burton is fifth.
 
The team began to bounce back toward the end of last season and worked hard over the off-season to improve its cars. And while no one is blaming last year’s struggles on expansion, Burton says it’s no coincidence that RCR has improved dramatically after cutting back to three teams.
 
So does that mean three teams are better than four?
 
“That’s a good question,” Burton said prior to the season. “In the position that our company is in right now, today, the position that it was in last year, not having the fourth team is not a negative impact.
 
“We have changed so many systems that having to implement those three times is a lot easier than having to implement them four times.
 
“We, long-term, will be stronger having a fourth team. [But] when things aren’t going well and you have two teams, they are not going well for two teams. When things aren’t going well with four, you have four teams that miss it.
 
“The position that we got ourselves in last year, having a fourth team wasn’t helping us with that. If anything, it was another team that had a problem. Because of that, I think we are stronger with three.”
 
Bowyer, who finished 15th in points last year, the highest of the four RCR drivers, agrees that RCR is a stronger organization with three cars rather than four.
 
“I just think that circumstances were not good right then, and our program, our direction of our program wasn't good,” he said. “You know, for whatever reason, whether it's management or whatever else, I just have a good strong feeling that three cars are going to be better for our organization.”
 
The current trend seems to confirm that theory.
 
Roush made history in 2005 when it put all five of its drivers in the Chase. But it has struggled to duplicate the feat, and had only two of its five make it last year.
 
In the past three seasons, Roush has had three championship contenders in Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth while Jamie McMurray and David Ragan struggled.
 
McMurray, the odd man out when Roush was forced by NASCAR to drop a team, was delighted to return to a two-car team at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, where he predicted he would be more comfortable and more successful.
 
His prophecy has already come true, with McMurray winning the Daytona 500 in his first race with his new team.
 
Team owner Chip Ganassi struggled when he had three cars, but the new organization, which merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2008, is much stronger with McMurray and Juan Pablo Montoya, who made the Chase last year.
 
McMurray says things are less complicated with two or three teams instead of four or five.
 
“The hard part about having the four other teammates [at Roush Fenway Racing] ... is there’s so much information to go through, and really, when they do the setups of the cars, you can’t take just what you want from each of those setups. It’s kind of a package deal,” McMurray said.
 
“It’s overwhelming when you have that much information to look at and things aren’t going well. It’s hard not to nit-pick through it and take the little bits that you think would be good and then try to apply those. Sometimes it’s just too much. Sometimes it’s not always better to have that much information.”
 
Even Hendrick Motorsports has struggled to produce four consistent winners and championship contenders.
 
It has had three seasons in which all four of its drivers won races, but has never put all four drivers in the Chase, or in the top 10 in points.
 
Last year, Hendrick drivers Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin swept the top three in points, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. failed to win a race and finished 25th in points.
 
Even when Hendrick had three teams, the third team typically struggled.
 
Team owner Rick Hendrick insists that having four teams is not a drain on his organization and believes he can produce four winning teams again.
 
“I don’t think it’s a drain. I don’t think the difference between two and three and four [matters],” he says. “You’ve just got to have all the right people in the right spots. Then you’ve got to have the racing luck. …
 
“It’s been unbelievable that Jimmie’s had his stretch without having a let-down. Jeff, I didn’t think it would ever happen to the 24 and it did and we had to come back. I don’t think it’s so much the number.”
 
Unless an organization adds a team for the wrong reason, Hendrick says.
 
“If you add a team just to add a team, I think that’s when you get in trouble,” he said.
 
Roush Fenway Racing co-owner Jack Roush says he had five teams because he had five capable drivers and five sponsors that wanted to back them. When he first expanded to five teams, his roster included Martin, Kenseth, Biffle, Edwards and Kurt Busch, who won the inaugural Chase in 2004 with Roush. McMurray and Ragan were eventually added to replace Martin and Busch.
 
He says losing a team should not have a negative impact on his organization.
 
“I don’t think it’s substantial,” he says. “The difference between four teams and five teams, I don’t see that as a real loss to the team. I’ll just have more time to focus on the four teams.”
 
Roush is the only team owner who has consistently produced four or five winning, championship-caliber teams. He says he did it by spreading his team’s resources and sponsorship dollars evenly across all his teams.
 
“We have been really even-handed and consistent with our support,” he said. “We’ve got the same number of people and the same amount of resources and the same amount of dollars spent on every team, regardless of what the sponsorship dollars are.
 
“We have been real consistent and we have not prioritized resources from one team to another.”
 
Burton says RCR may need to add a fourth team again some day to keep pace with Hendrick and Roush. But for now, less is more.
 
“We were able to take the amount of workforce that it took to run four teams, the cream of the crop, and create three, so our talent level on each team and each department is spread out among three and not four. So we are stronger in that regard,” he says.
 
“When we get back and do a fourth team, it will ultimately be better for us to do it, but right now, in this place and time, I think we are probably better off having three.”