As racing budgets shrink, teams look for ways to stay competitive

I forgot about the whole idea of getting rid of jackmen by adding a hydraulic lift to the cars. LOL

Obviously though..... Some very tough decisions ahead. Honestly, I don't think that the owners will do it themselves without NASCAR mandating things. So..... I don't necessarily agree with Kyle but that's nothing new on my behalf.
 
It sounds like what the company I work for and many others went through in 2008.I remember looking at my 401k and thinking,holy crap I'll never retire,but we are OK today.We no longer have private jets,if the CEO needs to travel by air he takes a commercial flight.NASCAR teams will just have to adapt to making do with less,that might be a good thing.
 
"What's really going to happen in the sport is you're going to see the loss of people who are here just to make a paycheck and you're going to see an influx of the people who are really, really passionate for the sport."

How would you like to work for Team Penske and be thought of as one of those people "who are here just to make a paycheck?" Also IDK what he means by "you're going to see an influx of the people who are really, really passionate for the sport" but it could be code for replacing current employees with interns and others that will work for peanuts but who knows?

In many businesses half your budget is eaten up through payroll so the quickest way to save a buck is to shed people, cross train the remainder so they can do several jobs and cut the pay of the remaining employees. It sounds cut and dried but once you start messing with an employee's pay it can usher in all sorts of negatives from poor morale to poor performance and in extreme cases sabotage.

Some of this is confusing as you read on here and different places where Nascar is doing fine and doesn't face much in the way of issues and then you read something like this which is a huge issue.
 
I used to be against NASCAR getting smaller but I think it's better in the long run. The "spectacle" of having 150,000+ fans packed into tracks, millions upon millions of TV viewers, and a sport which saw no limit in its growth was very cool. Now if we can get it back to something more "grassroots" that would intrigue me.

They key though is keeping cars on the track. That's most critical. We can't keep having 2-3 cars fold each year because team(s) go under. Short tracks live and die by car counts. Anyone who's been around short tracks (dirt or asphalt) knows this. That's why it absolutely terrifies me when people don't see 48-50 cars qualifying week-in-week-out going down to 38-40 as an issue. It's a huge issue. Bigger than TV viewers or track attendance. Because without cars people won't show up. And we can't continue at this rate of loss.

This is why keeping costs down for the teams is the most important issue NASCAR should be addressing right now, imo. I'm very glad more and more drivers are speaking out on this issue. Now when JJ, Kyle, Truex, and all the guys trade in their motorhomes for something that's actually worth less than my single-story ranch? ;)
 
The #1 thing NASCAR as a sanctioning body can do right now is figure out how to cut costs for all teams without impacting the racing. I want to keep the jack man too, but Kyle Petty's view is completely unrealistic. Leaving it up to the teams is only going to further the disparities between the haves and have not's as budgets shrink for some more or less than others.

There are very few NASCAR fans that believe the massively expensive ongoing R&D war actually enhances their fan experience. Many fans don't even know it's going on. This is where the cuts need to be made, IMO, and they need to be deep. Money buys speed, that's always been true, but how much speed a dollar buys and how that dollar manifests itself is where the levers of change need to be worked. F1's new boss seems to have this same idea and Liberty media is applying it to the worlds largest and most tech-heavy motorsport. NASCAR should do the same.
 
I expect that we'll see more teams that don't go to every race - including some pretty good teams. The Wood brothers did well with David Pearson without running every race.

If I didn't have sponsorship obligations to run a particular race, and my typical finish wouldn't win enough to exceed my expenses, then I'd be tempted to skip it. Spend my time and money working on the car for another race where I felt my performance would be better. Especially with this Chase deal - if I'm out of the Championship hunt then I'm less motivated to finish the season. If skipping a race won't drop my standing in the points (or the payoff difference isn't much compared to expenses if I did drop a position), then I might be smarter to go test or even just watch the race. Sometimes you can learn something by taking a step back.

I hate to skip races because I really want to race, but I also don't like getting lapped and I can't keep racing if I go broke.

The well-heeled teams may not be in this position, but they might decide to cut back on how many teams they run. Wouldn't surprise me if some four car teams become three car teams, maybe running a fourth car when there's enough money available (a nice way of saying "when a driver brings enough money to buy a ride" - which is already happening).
 
At the cup level, they got rid of the crash cart and the personnel that required and so far I haven't missed it. Reduced weekends cut a bunch for lodging and transportation costs. Next year the engine rule comes in along with no more spending 7 figures to have alien pit guns and there will probably be more of the shorter weekends. I don't see any of that hurting the competition and more than fair to everybody because everybody that competes it effects. Petty's not in the loop, the air jack was one thing of many mentioned as a possible way to cut costs. Engines and personnel are the most expensive areas. Tires are right behind and those have been limited for some time in all of the series.
 
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