Helton Responds To Ownership Questions
NASCAR President Mike Helton said Thursday that despite appearances to the contrary, the sanctioning body's decision to limit team size is not a personal attack on Jack Roush. Other points Helton made in an interview with SPEEDTV.com included:
Team owners have known the cap was under discussion for the last 12-18 months.
The cap will be phased in to allow existing sponsor agreements to be exhausted.
The sanctioning body will have to come up with strict definitions to police the teams from creating alliances that defeat the hard-cap concept.
There will not be any franchising in NASCAR in the foreseeable future.
NASCAR will not use the current Nextel Cup cars in the Busch Series once the "Car of Tomorrow" is phased in starting in late 2006 or early '07.
Helton said many details remain to be worked out, but the buzz in the garage is that teams will be capped to three cars starting no later than 2010, with a limit of four placed sometime between now and then. "There would have to be a reasonable amount of a time provided to the guys who are above the cap," Helton said Thursday. "What that cap is, how many numbers, what the definitions are, what constitutes a relationship, what would be considered as owning a team and what doesn't institute a relationship. Those are the things that we have to go on and gather and make headway on." NASCAR's president insisted that the new cap has been in the works for more than a year, long before Roush had all five of his drivers qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup. "The topic has been around for a long time," Helton said. "We've had dialog with different owners in the garage area that has input a lot into the parameters we're now looking at.
MORE..."(Speed TV)
NASCAR President Mike Helton said Thursday that despite appearances to the contrary, the sanctioning body's decision to limit team size is not a personal attack on Jack Roush. Other points Helton made in an interview with SPEEDTV.com included:
Team owners have known the cap was under discussion for the last 12-18 months.
The cap will be phased in to allow existing sponsor agreements to be exhausted.
The sanctioning body will have to come up with strict definitions to police the teams from creating alliances that defeat the hard-cap concept.
There will not be any franchising in NASCAR in the foreseeable future.
NASCAR will not use the current Nextel Cup cars in the Busch Series once the "Car of Tomorrow" is phased in starting in late 2006 or early '07.
Helton said many details remain to be worked out, but the buzz in the garage is that teams will be capped to three cars starting no later than 2010, with a limit of four placed sometime between now and then. "There would have to be a reasonable amount of a time provided to the guys who are above the cap," Helton said Thursday. "What that cap is, how many numbers, what the definitions are, what constitutes a relationship, what would be considered as owning a team and what doesn't institute a relationship. Those are the things that we have to go on and gather and make headway on." NASCAR's president insisted that the new cap has been in the works for more than a year, long before Roush had all five of his drivers qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup. "The topic has been around for a long time," Helton said. "We've had dialog with different owners in the garage area that has input a lot into the parameters we're now looking at.
MORE..."(Speed TV)
