And now all series seek ways to get teams to stay involved in the sport.
By BRANT JAMES
Published May 8, 2004
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Rick Hendrick remembers fondly the good old days, the inexpensive old days. Granted, sitting in his opulent race shop turned museum, surrounded by the various cars that have won championships for his team, he appreciates the luxuries that 20 fruitful years in NASCAR can bring.
But in NASCAR, like never before, it takes money - lots of it - to make money, or contest for a championship. A balky economy has dried up sponsorship dollars and forced teams to find new ways to do more with less. Hendrick feels nostalgic for the simpler days.
"The first time I tested at Talladega it was an open trailer and a box truck," he said. "It's changed a ton."
Whereas Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 Winston Cup championship on less than $2-million over 29 races, the same venture - everything from testing, travel and car parts to team meals - requires as much as $20-million today over a 36-race schedule. Larger, multicar teams strain under those economic conditions. Single-car teams like BAM Racing or the Wood Brothers struggle to compete.
An engine program costs roughly $3-million a year. Tires are another million. NASCAR's changes to aerodynamic rules and an increase in testing days at sanctioned tracks prompted teams to spend even more.
There are hard solutions, said Ryan Pemberton, crew chief of Joe Nemechek's No.01 Chevrolet.
"I don't think testing is that important to the show," he said. "Cut all testing out. California was a good race, I think. It came down to a lot of different aspects of fuel mileage and handling and very few people tested out there, so what's the difference? If three people tested out there, you couldn't pick them out."
Banning official testing at tracks that hold Nextel Cup races would allow teams to conduct more frequent, less labor-intensive tests at places such as Kentucky Speedway, Pemberton said.
"We do need to go someplace to get some laps on the cars, but we could cut the costs down," he said. "When we go to Kentucky we can take a limited number of people and do it in a low-key situation with one motor and a few sets of tires. When we test at a place like Charlotte, you need extra of this and everything else because this is your test date and you need to be ready to go."
Lawmakers in North and South Carolina and Virginia are contemplating building multi-track test facilities costing between $50-million and $150-million to lure NASCAR teams.
NASCAR is not alone in its arms-race-like cost escalation.
The Indy Racing League continues to see engine costs skyrocket with General Motors, Honda and Toyota vying for superiority. F1 on Tuesday announced new austerity measures after being beset by mounting costs and the domination of a free-spending Ferrari team that has won five consecutive constructors' titles and the first four races of the season with Michael Schumacher.
The plan, advocated by governing body International Automobile Federation (commonly known by its French acronym, FIA), and set to commence in 2006, would reduce the technical gadgetry in cars, make engines less powerful and more durable. The selection of a single tire manufacturer would negate the need to test multiple sets of tires.
All of the changes would theoretically reduce costs. Ferrari spends an estimated $450-million on its two-car team. F1 also-ran Minardi spends about $35-million. Fields were reduced by four to 20 in recent years when the Arrows and Prost teams were priced out.
"The basic idea is to make the racing closer and more interesting, and I think we'll succeed in that," Max Mosley, head of the FIA, told the Associated Press. "They've got to come up with something much better than we've got."
Out of necessity, Champ Car has become a model of survival. The former Championship Auto Racing Teams plunged into bankruptcy last fall before its assets were purchased and reassembled under a new name by team owners Gerald Forsythe, Paul Gentilozzi and Kevin Kalkhoven. Struggling to bloom in the IRL's shadow, Champ Car has opted for a socialist approach to curtail costs.
"We're the best at it," Gentilozzi said.
Champ Car won the right to purchase all 93 of CART's Cosworth engines in the bankruptcy proceedings. Every team pays the league $1.216-million to lease nine engines for 14 races. Every engine can last 1,200 miles - a weekend of qualifying, practice and racing consumes about 400 - and is returned to Cosworth technicians when spent. New engines are issued by blind draw. The result, said Gentilozzi, is fairness and economic sanity.
"It's the ultimate in cost containment," he said. "We structured this deal so you can't spend too much money. You look at the disparity in some other series, where you have some owners spending two or three times what the base teams spend. You can't spend more, you can't have a better engine or do more development. We all have the same tires. Now we all have the same cars, so it's up to the people element, the human element to separate it, the driver talent, the engineering talent, that's what makes a difference.
"You can come here and race for $4-million. You can come here and race for $6-million. You have to be throwing money out the back of your truck to spend $8-million and that won't even get you in the park for an IRL deal right now."
Competition among manufacturers eager to sell passenger cars helps fuel the cost spiral in stock car racing. The old phrase "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" still has relevance to General Motors, Dodge, Ford and now Toyota in the NASCAR Truck series. In open-wheel racing, where cars bear no resemblance to street vehicles, the maxim does not apply. But still, Gentilozzi said, manufacturers continue to spend themselves into oblivion in the IRL.
"The thing that ruined (CART) a few years ago is now overrunning the other guys," he said. "I was an engine builder the first year for the IRL, when they went to the 4-valve V8 and you were supposed to be able to buy the engine. You can't. If you think you were going to be able to buy the engine out of Roger Penske's Toyota - never in a million years. It has absolutely gone the wrong direction."
Economics might steer the sport back to fiscal sanity, but the days of one trailer and one truck are long gone.
