NASCAR roundup

News:

• Sources: Sadler set to return to No. 19
• Petty, Gillett Evernham to merge
• Chevy to remain Daytona sponsor
• Owner reaches deal on fraud charges
• Logano to defend All-Star title
• Baldwin to debut Cup team at Daytona

Analysis:

• DW: Teams spend too much
• Owens: Where were the fireworks?
• DW: Petty cash, not enough
• McReynolds: It all starts here
• Mondaca: Nine stories for '09

Looking back at 2008:

• Sprint Cup
• Nationwide
• Trucks

Blog:

• Check out the NASCAR community

What I am not looking forward to however are the really tough times ahead for our sport. Sponsors are falling by the wayside pretty quickly with our economy in the tank the way it is.

There is going to be a lot of economic pressure on the car and truck owners next year in our sport. It probably will be most visible in Cup, because it's our biggest series, but the Nationwide and Truck series owners are facing a tough year in 2009. That's probably been the most overriding topic of conversation this week in the interviews I have done.

One of NASCAR's all-time favorite sayings is, "We need to figure out ways to save these car owners money." I tell you this story all the time because it rings so true – a few years ago Richard Childress stepped up and said "I can't afford for NASCAR to save me any more money." A good example of this is the NASCAR testing policy.

There is no way in my mind that we couldn't save these teams millions of dollars by simply opening the track a day early, let them use their testing telemetry and quit allowing them to criss-cross the country testing at these other tracks. It's the telemetry that makes testing so valuable. It is not the track time. The telemetry gives you the feedback of what the car is doing and allows you to make the necessary adjustments.

Think about how much it costs a team to go test at, say, Milwaukee. Is The Milwaukee Mile on the Cup schedule? No, but teams test there all the time. You are going to have a hauler with two cars and all the expense of getting it there and back. You are going to send in the neighborhood of 12 to 20 people to the test. You have to have hotels for all those guys, rental cars and per diem. Oh, and let's not forget the team plane that has to fly them there and back, so add in the jet fuel and pilot costs.

So why not let them come to the track they are going to race on a day earlier and let them use their telemetry there. In this day and age with the economy the way it is, why aren't they testing on the track they are going to race on? The testing policy makes no sense. Why would you want to limit testing and then let these guys go all over the country testing at these other tracks? Open the track a day early or at least let them use their telemetry all day Friday at the track. Let them get all their data and information from the car and then they can go about their normal business. That would save these teams immensely.

But that is just one area.

In this era of all these rules and micro-managing our sport, NASCAR needs to sit down and say, "OK, what can we undo?" The reason they won't let the teams work on the new car is that teams have already spent a fortune building them. So the teams can't afford now to go in and re-build them. The car still needs some tweaks on it and maybe they will see the light on that sooner or later.

Another example is the Nationwide series. They want a new car there but the teams can't afford it.

NASCAR has to wake up and realize they can't keep pushing things out there and tell these teams "this is what we want and this is what you are going to do." The teams simply can't afford it. Somebody has got to realize that and they better realize it pretty darn soon.

The other area that needs looked at is the tire expense. Trust me, as a former car owner I know first hand about writing big checks to pay the tire bills. Why is it that in the Nationwide and Truck series we have a tire limit but it is unlimited in Cup? The reason the Cup series has different rules than the other series is that Cup has all the money. Well guess what? All the money is gone but someone has to continue to pay the bills.

NASCAR and the team owners have got to get together, sit down and come up with some solutions. The help has to come from the NASCAR side. They have to be the ones to make some changes here to help these teams. NASCAR is the one that says you can't test at the track you are racing at and they are the ones that are allowing teams to buy unlimited amounts of tires. So the teams are only playing within the rules given to them. They are testing at all these other tracks across the country and spending enormous sums of money on tires.

NASCAR made a rule a few years ago that at the time, honestly, I thought was pretty bizarre. But you know what? I will be the first to step up and say it was a great rule and they have made it work. It was the one-engine rule. In the beginning it was bizarre to me because of all the engines we were accustomed to using over the weekend. But it works and it has cut down on a lot of expense. So I know when NASCAR makes up its mind to improve on an area, it can make it work. So to me, that testing thing would be a great big first step. The testing thing could happen tomorrow. The tire thing could happen tomorrow.

The next really big area I think needs addressed is the schedule. Now don't get all fired up because I am not talking about taking any races away from anyone. I just think we should look at the schedule and quit forcing these teams to go from one coast to the other in a week's time. Group the races together in a region. This year for example we went from Las Vegas to Atlanta. Then we went from Martinsville, Va., to Dallas and over to Phoenix and back to Talladega, Ala.

I thought about this a lot and I think we need to start the season earlier. I said the other night on NASCAR Now that I would start the season in Fontana, Calif. — that wouldn't be unprecedented, we used to start the season in January at Riverside, Calif.

Speed Mail DW
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I will propose something even more radical. Run the first race on New Years Eve. Let it end up close to midnight and then I would have one whale of a fireworks show and New Year's Eve party at the racetrack. Kick the season off with a bang, literally.

I would keep the schedule going. No week off and no two weeks in Daytona for testing. I would try and run every race from January until the end of September or the first of October. Now, naturally, you have to have some scheduled breaks built in to let these teams catch their breath.

That gets us out of this thing that we are fighting year in and year out — the NFL. Everything we do, we try and compete with the NFL. We can't compete with the NFL. We are auto racing and they are football. When football season starts they have the television tied up and we need to stop trying to compete against them for viewers. We just can't do it. So we need to end our season before they get strong into theirs. If you were to end our season in late September or early October you give our sport a legitimate off-season.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said a really smart thing last week. He said we need to leave the fans wanting more. The NFL does that but we don't. Now the way it is, we end our season before Thanksgiving, go to New York in early December for the awards banquet, get through Christmas and New Year's and then it's testing time in January at Daytona. We really never stop. Our sport needs about a three-month break in there so people will want some more and be anxious to get us back on the track.

We've gotten into this habit where we just go-go-go. We are always in this mode of promoting and putting more out there. I think we should really adopt the old phrase "Less is more." I really believe that and I think NASCAR should think about that.

Oh, by the way

We have got to start taking care and giving back to the fans. They are so loyal to our sport. They truly are the best fans in all of sports. I have said this in the past but I am going to keep saying it. NASCAR needs to work with the racetracks and the communities that host these events and help these fans out. If you come to town and you have bought a race ticket for that weekend, it should enable to the fans to get a discount on hotel rooms, food and gas. These fans are spending their hard-earned money to come to our races and fewer of them are going to be able to do it unless we find ways to help them out. Wherever they go, with a ticket in their hand they get a discount that weekend. I don't think that would be too hard to pull off and the fans need and deserve it now more then ever.

Oh, by the way too

People keep saying the Chase needs to be changed. I still say the Chase needs two simple things to be more exciting. First, it needs to be shortened. Ten races is too long. If they want to continue with 12 guys in there, fine, but every week someone should get bumped out. It would put a lot of drama back into the Chase.

The other thing they could do is give the Chase contenders their own points system to try and keep it closer. Now this has nothing to do with Jimmie Johnson. It has everything to do with trying to create some excitement in these last few races. It will give people a reason to continue to follow the Chase all the way to the end. That's what the Chase was intended for and what NASCAR hoped it would do.