Jared Turner: Truck series in trouble heading into ‘09 season
COMMENTARY
Let’s start with a theory that is actually more like a fact: For a racing series to be optimally competitive, it must first have enough competitors.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, there’s no simple fix to the waning participation haunting the newly named NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Barely a month away from the start of the 15th season for NASCAR’s No. 3 series, you can count the number of Truck drivers with confirmed full-time rides on two hands.
And the number of drivers with a confirmed full-time primary sponsor is even fewer.
At last check, Ron Hornaday (Kevin Harvick Inc.), Colin Braun (Roush Fenway Racing), Matt Crafton (ThorSport Racing), Johnny Benson (Red Horse Racing), David Starr (Red Horse), Rick Crawford (Circle Bar Racing) and Todd Bodine (Germain Racing) were the only definite driver-team pairings in place for the upcoming season.
Notably absent from the list are three-time series champion Jack Sprague (who may return to Wyler Racing, where he finished out ’08) and Mike Skinner, a former champion and 25-time Truck winner whose status is in limbo partly because of the change in ownership at the team formerly known as Bill Davis Racing.
Among the teams with a seat yet to be filled are KHI, Randy Moss Motorsports, ThorSport and possibly the new Triad Racing Technologies group that replaced BDR.
Meanwhile, at least two organizations that fielded trucks in 2008 – Bobby Hamilton Racing-Virginia and Wood Brothers Racing – won’t be doing so this year, now that BHR has closed its doors and the Wood Brothers have folded their Truck program until further notice.
So what does this dearth-of-sponsorship-induced madness mean for the series that has traditionally produced some of NASCAR’s most colorful characters and electrifying competition? (Look no further than last year’s championship battle between Hornaday and Benson for an example of the latter)
It means that while there will certainly be more than seven or eight trucks on the grid for the series opener at Daytona on Feb. 12, don’t expect there to anywhere near a full 36-truck field at the majority of the 25 scheduled races.
And with fewer trucks and fewer drivers on the track, the intense competition often associated with the series will inevitably suffer.
If the current state of the U.S. economy doesn’t improve soon, it may be that way for a while, or perhaps even for good. And that’s too bad, really.
Because while the Truck series can’t hang with its Sprint Cup and Nationwide series counterparts in terms of prestige and overall fan interest, it has been a largely successful venture prior to the current recession that has also impacted NASCAR’s top two series, though on a different level.
But when a three-time champion like Sprague hasn’t made a formal driving commitment this close to the start of a season and last year’s eighth-place points finisher, Dennis Setzer, is without a ride because his team (BHR) has shut down, there is reason for concern.
Hopefully, the series will dig its way out of this hole and maintain its competitive brand before more competitors go elsewhere or just call it quits.
