Right Turns

A NASCAR BLOG BY Jim Duff

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Should NASCAR adopt a Formula One rule?

Feb 13

Good news for those of you thinking about putting together a Formula One team this year: The sport’s governing body says you will no longer need to post a $48 million bond to guarantee that you really will show up for every race.

It seems that officials now figure that if you can come up with the $75 million to $175 million it will likely cost for a couple of cars, you’re a pretty good bet to show up.

The problem for NASCAR is that’s not all that expensive, which makes it easy to gum up the works.

By the end of last week, 54 cars were entered for the 43 spots in this Sunday’s Daytona 500. That means 11 of those entries won’t make the race.

With 35 teams locked into the event, it’s quite possible some pretty well-sponsored teams that have every intention of showing up for
every race this year won’t make the field for the sport’s biggest show. At the same time, it’s likely that at least a few teams that intend only to cherry-pick a handful of races will sneak into the field.

Some misguided fans, of course, will hail those cherry-pickers. They’ll see their success as the triumph of the little guy.

Their success may indeed represent triumphs for small-time independents, but it’s bad news for the sport. If high-dollar major sponsors whose cars don’t make the race decide NASCAR isn’t going to protect their investment in the sport, they just may decide to go away.

Then the misguided fans will soon have exactly what they want, a bunch of field-fillers content to start a race, develop “handling problems,” park and pick up a check without ever having to change tires.

If NASCAR officials want to continue to reject the idea of franchising 43 teams, they might at least want to look at an F1-type system that would require every team to post some sort of bond to ensure they really plan to race every week. If small-time teams don’t want to make such a commitment, there’s no reason NASCAR should allow them to gum up the field for those who intend to support the series week in and week out.