Rea White: Personal and business collide in NASCAR
By Rea White - Associate Editor
Friday, July 18, 2008
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NASCAR is a sport of loyalty. Fans are loyal to their drivers, to those drivers' sponsors and to the manufacturers for whom those drivers compete. They wear the colors of their favorites, buy the products of the teams and drivers they watch race every weekend. These days, they then watch as the alliances shift and they need different gear.
Part of that is the business nature of racing. Sponsors come and go, altering the look of the car and the particular team that it represented. When GM Goodwrench ceased to sponsor Kevin Harvick, he went from their familiar black-and-gray uniforms to the bright orange and yellow of new sponsor Shell Pennzoil. The same is true when a driver changes teams. Often, that comes with a changing of sponsorship as well. Look at the case of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who left the red Budweiser logos he made famous to become clad in the greens and blues of Amp and the National Guard.
It's just business.
But not to fans. And now, loyalties are being tested in new ways. In the past year, a trio of drivers who have spent their entire careers with one team have announced plans to join another. For varying reasons, Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman have felt the need to continue and further their NASCAR Sprint Cup careers with another organization.
The background for these decisions is quite diverse, but it's a sign of yet another trend in a sport where winning has become more difficult, where racing has become more competitive and where victories have become the province of just a handful of teams.
Earnhardt Jr. left Dale Earnhardt Inc., the company his father founded, and started racing for Hendrick Motorsports this season. Now, he's second in the standings and seems to have found another place where he can be both comfortable and confident. That's not meant as a knock on DEI, either. Sometimes, it just takes a change for a team to make progress, for someone to regain their footing.
Stewart is leaving Joe Gibbs Racing, again the only team he's ever competed for in the Cup series. He and crew chief Greg Zipadelli have shared two championships and 10 seasons. They've proven to be a lethal combination. But with Stewart already involved in team ownership in other series, he decided he wanted to try it in NASCAR as well and found a place where he can do that. Next season, he'll compete for the newly named Stewart-Haas Racing team after partnering with the current Haas CNC Racing group. He'll apparently no longer sport the bright orange colors of Home Depot, though.
Newman simply wants to win championships. He and his Penske Racing team were hot in their opening seasons together, but that fire has cooled in recent years. He won the season-opening Daytona 500, but that was his first victory since 2005. He made the Chase the first two years the format was used, but hasn't been in contention for that since 2005, either. So he's decided to leave the only team he's ever raced with, the one that tabbed the concept of an "A-B-C" (ARCA, Busch, Cup series) schedule in bringing him along. He has 12 wins with the group, but eight of those came in 2003 and all but one came from 2002-05.
For the drivers, these moves came at the conclusion of what seems to have been a gut-wrenching decision process. None entered into these changes lightly or without serious thought and probably not a few second thoughts and concerns. Yet they made the move.
They're certainly not the first to do so. Rusty Wallace won the championship in 1989. In 1991, he joined Penske Racing. Mark Martin and Roush Racing parted ways after 19 seasons when the driver decided to scale back his schedule. Others have made similar choices.
Now, it's up to the fans to decide where they go. Traditionally, they remain with their drivers. But perhaps they still feel a bit of loyalty to the team those men worked with as well. Maybe they're a little torn about which colors to wear in the future, or maybe they opt for a bit of both.
After all, NASCAR is a business. But it's also that sport of loyalty - and that can lead to some tough decisions for fans as well as drivers in the future.
Comments
1 response to "Rea White: Personal and business collide in NASCAR"
John Lockhart said:
Jul 18, 2008 at 9:59 PMI have changed wearing my driver's gear three times,once When Dale Sr.died,then went to wearing Bud gear with Dale Jr. Now I've changed for the third time.That's what you do when your a true fan of the driver.The problem is what to do with all the other things.Because you never want to sell it,unless it brings you a good retirement.
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