*THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com**
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!*
November 19th, 2008
Volume II, Edition CCXXIII
*Today's Top News
Team Layoffs Continue -- Final Numbers Unknown*
*by Phil Allaway*
With the 2008 season complete, the economic crisis is beginning to come down
hard on race teams in the Sprint Cup Series. Already, DEI (as a result of
the merger between DEI and CGRFS) and Hendrick Motorsports, in addition to
JR Motorsports in the Nationwide Series, have announced staff layoffs in an
attempt to save money.
Today, news has surfaced that Stewart-Haas Racing (formerly Haas CNC
Racing), Yates Racing, Hall of Fame Racing, Petty Enterprises and the Wood
Brothers have all laid off varying numbers of employees in a scramble
essentially for survival. The raw numbers, as Frontstretch has them, look
like this:
*
Layoffs*
*DEI* -- 116 Employees
*Ganassi *-- 71 (from shutdown of the No. 40 team in June)
*Petty -- *23
*Wood Brothers *-- 22
*Stewart-Haas *-- 16
*Hendrick *-- 12
*Hall of Fame -- *Unknown
*Yates *-- Unknown
*Bill Davis *-- Unknown, but down to bare bones staff at shop
Unemployment announcements are expected to pick up after Thanksgiving in
early December, when teams come to grips with a lack of sponsorship for
2009.
*Fitz Motorsports To Fold?*
SceneDaily.com is reporting that Fitz Motorsports team owner Armando Fitz is
seriously considering shuttering his Nationwide Series team for next
season.
"I really never thought I could have a year worse than what I had in '05,"
Fitz said. In 2005, both of Fitz's parents died within six months of each
other. "This year has been right there."
During this past season, Fitz was sued by former drivers Joel Kauffman and
Mike Bliss, which resulted in seizures of team equipment for auction on both
occasions.
Fitz Motorsports still reportedly owes money to certain vendors, and has
discussed selling a share of the team. Of course, any potential investors
in the team would have to be made aware of monies owed to individual vendors
(parts, shop equipment, etc.).
On the sponsorship front, Fitz's No. 22 has backing for only 15 of the 35
scheduled races for next season. The car finished out the year with Drive
For Diversity graduate Marc Davis behind the wheel; he had a best finish of
just 27th, but the team collected a total of one Top 5 and three Top 10
finishes with a handful of other drivers in 2008.
*Today's Featured Commentary
Full Throttle
Time To Tighten The Purse Strings
**by Mike Neff
*The economy in the United States, and for that matter around the world, has
taken a drastic downturn during the past Sprint Cup season. The resulting
struggles of teams trying to acquire sponsorship have already been well
documented, and leave many a stock car mechanic nervous about their future
employment. The massive layoffs that many predicted to befall the Cup garage
this past Monday did not fully materialize, but just because it fell short
of 1,000 doesn't mean there aren't a large number of team members who are
looking for work today. From Hall of Fame Racing to Hendrick Motorsports,
teams are being forced to reduce their payroll during these lean economic
times. But while it is certainly painful for the people now unemployed and
the persons making the decisions to let them go, it very well might be the
kind of sensibility check that will make the sport better in the long run.
NASCAR has been riding high on the hog for better than 20 years, and has
been immune to the most recent downturns in the economy that have caused
many others to have to tighten their belts. While production jobs have been
eliminated from auto manufacturers and others involved with the automotive
industry over that time, the teams in the Cup garage have expanded and
continued to spend extravagantly on all of the bells and whistles that may
not be all that necessary to make a race car go fast. This downturn,
however, is different. The big money sponsors that have been so anxious to
get on the hood of Cup cars are suddenly not as numerous as they have been
in the past. Teams that were able to pick and choose which company they
wanted on the front of the car are now showing up, hat in hand, to try and
cobble together the money that they feel they need to run a top level
organization.
There is no doubt that running a car in the top levels of stock car racing
is a very expensive prospect, but teams are now going to be forced to work
smarter, and not necessarily harder, to get their cars to the front. Teams
would be well served to look at Yates Racing to see how to make a lot with a
little. Yates fielded two cars for the entire Cup season, often without the
benefit of sponsorship, with a staff that hovered around 70 employees for
the whole year. That's right; just 70 people were putting two cars together,
and sometimes running near the front of the pack with the product they were
putting out there on the track. They weren't competing for wins, but they
were both solidly in the Top 35 for the majority of the season.
In sharp contrast, the Wood Brothers have nearly 300 employees in their
shop. They do run a Truck series team, and they helped JTG racing with their
Nationwide Series cars -- but they only field one Cup car, with more than
four times the number of employees that Yates had fielding two. Similarly,
Hendrick Motorsports has more than 500 employees fielding their four cars in
the Cup series. That's over 125 people per car, 55 more than Yates is using
to field two cars. Certainly there is a price for success, and Hendrick has
been the benchmark organization in the Cup series for years. But even
Hendrick has not been immune, and recently announced that at least a handful
of employees were let go after the end of the season.
NASCAR racing has become big business, although at this point it may have
become too big for its own britches. Teams traveling on company owned jets,
pit crews flying in the day of the race, drivers and crew chiefs staying in
multi-million dollar motor homes at the track -- all of those things are a
long way from the roots of the sport that used to see people drive their car
to the speedway, race it, and then drive it home. Progress is a good thing,
and prosperity is without a doubt a benefit of doing something right that
people enjoy and are willing to pay for. However, the number of people
willing to pay to see it, and also the number of people willing to assist in
putting on the show, are now shrinking. The teams in the garage are going to
be forced to adjust their ways or risk spending themselves out of the sport.
Does every team need a seven post rig? Probably not, although the new ban on
testing is going to make those machines even more important. Should crew
members be making six figure salaries? Maybe, maybe not. The sport of stock
car racing is like all other economic entities, and it is all based on
supply and demand. The people who are the best at what they do will be in
demand, and that limited supply of talent can draw the biggest salaries in
the sport. Unfortunately for the people who are the best at what they do,
the amount of money that people are willing to pay for that talent is going
to be less than it used to be. All of a sudden, the $120,000 front tire
change from 2008 may very well only be able to bring home $90,000 in 2009.
Of course, that is still a hell of a lot of money for 38 weekends of work a
year. Not to say these men don't go through hardship. They practice every
day, work out like professional athletes, and have to sacrifice time away
from their families to be in the sport they love. Unfortunately, they're
going to have to decide if the job is still worth it making 1/3 less than
they were last year.
Still, even in today's tough economy, the people who are going to be working
in NASCAR are going to be well paid to do what they do -- just not as well
paid as they were. When push comes to shove, they're a select few who are
doing jobs that thousands of other people would gladly sacrifice to get the
chance to do for a lot less money. So, owners of Cup teams are going to have
to look long and hard at all of their expenditures during the offseason, and
making some tough decisions about what is really necessary to run
competitively. And when it's all said and done, we very well may see 35 cars
on the track some race weekends, and some people who used to work in Cup
taking jobs changing tires at the local Goodyear retailer -- because the
time commitment to be part of a Cup team doesn't justify the amount of money
that can be made elsewhere.*
*
*Mike Neff is a Senior Writer at Frontstretch.com. You can reach him at
mike.n...@frontstretch.com ... and don't forget to check out his weekly
Power Rankings on Wednesdays and Picks N Pans column on Thursdays!**
*
*Got NASCAR-related questions or comments?*
Send them Matt Taliaferro's way at matt.taliafe...@frontstretch.com; and if
you're lucky, you'll get your name in print when he does his weekly column
answering back to you – the fans that keep Frontstretch afloat. Fanning The
Flames returns Thursday with a whole new set of Fan Questions and Answers!
*TODAY ON THE FRONTSTRETCH:*
*
Did You Notice? ... Layoffs Still Looming, Testing Hope, And Changes At
Yates* <http://www.frontstretch.com/tbowles/21763/>
*by Tom Bowles*
*
NASCAR Stars Weigh In, For Better Or Worse, On Big Three Bailout
Debate*<http://www.frontstretch.com/tthompson/21758/>
*by Tommy Thompson**
Mirror Driving : 2008's Biggest Moment, 2009's Testing Nightmare, And
Judging Johnson In 2050* <http://www.frontstretch.com/md/21760/>
*by the Frontstretch Staff*
*
Top Ten Things I Want To Say About The 2008 NASCAR
Season*<http://www.frontstretch.com/jmeyer/21754/>
*by Jeff Meyer**
Frontstretch Sprint Cup Power Rankings : Top 15 After
Homestead*<http://www.frontstretch.com/mneff/21759/>
*compiled by Mike Neff*
*FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
**Q. *These drivers have won championships in two of the three top NASCAR
series. Who are they?
*Check back Thursday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!*
*
Tuesday's Answer
**Q. *NASCAR Dynasties: These four ownership groups have combined to win
half of the Grand National/Cup championships. Who are they?*
A. *Lee and Richard Petty combined to win 10 Championships for Petty
Enterprises, followed by Rick Hendrick with eight and Richard Chilldress
Racing and Junior Johnson with six each. These four ownership groups account
for thirty of the sixty championships awarded since 1949.
*
Frontstretch Trivia Guarantee: ** If we mess up, you get the shirt off our
backs! If we've provided an incorrect answer to the Frontstretch Trivia
question, be the first to email the corrected trivia answer to
tri...@frontstretch.com and we'll send you a Frontstretch T-Shirt ... FREE!*
*
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**Coming Tomorrow in the Frontstretch Newsletter:*
-- Top Stories *by Bryan Davis Keith*
-- What's Vexing Vito?* by Vito Pugliese*
-- Frontstretch Line of the Week
-- Trivia, links to your favorite Frontstretch articles, and more!
*Tomorrow on the Frontstretch:
Matt McLaughlin Mouths Off* *by Matt McLaughlin*
Matt tackles the testing ban -- will it hold, can it work, and who will find
a way around it -- in his final commentary column of 2008.
*Fanning the Flames* *by Matt Taliaferro*
This week, Matt answers your questions about NASCAR and all things
NASCAR-centric. What did you say? He didn't answer yours? Well, maybe you
didn't send it to the right address: matt.taliafe...@frontstretch.com. Try
that email thing again, and you just may see your question in Fanning next
week!
*Voices From the Heartland* *by Jeff Meyer*
Join our resident satirist Thursday as he takes on NASCAR and brings the
battle to you.
*Kenny Wallace Driver Diary **as told to Amy Henderson
*Kenny gives an end-of-season wrap up after finishing out the season in Jay
Robinson's No. 28 U.S. Border Patrol Chevrolet in the Nationwide Series.
*Rick Crawford Driver Diary **as told to Toni Montgomery
*Rick takes a look back at 2008 and his season driving the No. 14 Circle Bar
Ford in the Truck Series.
--------------------------------------------------------------
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*(c)2008 Frontstretch.com*
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