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Xpress looking for sponsor to keep team alive
By Mark Ashenfelter
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
WAYNE EBINGER
The Xpress Motorsports Craftsman Truck Series team hasn't shut its doors just yet, but owner Dave Fuge Sr. knows that time may be growing nearer by the day. If Fuge doesn't have a sponsor signed by the end of December, a team that won a pair of championships will cease to exist.
Fuge, who has already laid off most of his employees, has owned the team since 2005, buying the team he led to championships as its crew chief from Steve Coulter. The team was sponsored by Chevrolet through last season, but went through this past season with limited sponsorship at best.
Mike Bliss won a race and finished 11th this season, with Coulter running the team out of his own pocket for the final six races. Those days, though, are a thing of the past.
"I'm hoping to get something, but I'm running out of hope. As of right now, I've laid pretty much everybody off," Fuge said Monday. "I can't keep making payroll. I've got to be like the rest of these [owners that have sponsors]. I don't have deep pockets. If there's nothing on the horizon, it's pretty hard for me to stick my neck out.
"I paid for the last six races on my own, and I can't do it any more. I'm in the hole. Unfortunately, I don't feel that the truck series is a very good buy for anybody [from a sponsor's perspective]. It's kind of hard to sell [the team], too."
Fuge spoke with someone interested in buying a truck team on Monday, and that person told Fuge he'd need at least $3 million to run the team for a season. Fuge said that was the minimum figure and agreed when the would-be owner said it was hard to find that much money.
A look at the season-ending earnings chart points out what Fuge sees as some of the problem. Bliss, who won the 2002 championship with Xpress Motorsports, earned $380,545 in 25 truck races this year. He also made six Cup starts with BAM Racing and earned $471,458 despite never finishing higher than 23rd. In the truck series, he had a win, seven top-fives and 13-top 10s.
Now, with only a few crewmen and a few others working in the office, Coulter sits and waits.
"We're not really doing much. We've got some leads out there, and we're going to keep going as long as we've got these leads," Fuge said. "I'd say if we don't get something sorted out by the end of [December] we're definitely done.
"Right now, I'm just looking for a buyer. I want to find somebody that wants to go racing and wants to go right. But pretty much everybody you talk to ... thinks you can go buy a couple trucks and a [transporter] and some pit equipment, and that's all they need to spend.
"It usually costs them double of what [they think] by the time they get everything that they need to get that everybody forgot to tell them about. And then they never intended on spending that much anyway. It's hard to find people that want to do it right like Coulter did and are willing to pay what it takes."
Mentioned Drivers: Mike Bliss
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