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March 15, 2007
It’s time to drop down to Busch
By Mike Harper
CJM Racing, the No. 72 Nextel Cup Series team has earned my respect.
I’ve found in my professional career that being a decision-maker for an organization can be one of the toughest jobs around. I would imagine being an owner in the Nextel Cup Series ranks right up as being one of the hardest jobs in the land, because the level of stress regarding the race-team operations and retaining valuable sponsorship would be a difficult challenge to say the least.
In today’s Nextel Cup Series we’re seeing a totally different level of business. It’s not for the weak at heart or even the cheap at heart. To compete you’ve got to have a rich and aggressive backbone to even make it in the sport.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what kind of famous name you have, the bottom line is if you can’t cut it in NASCAR’s elite series, you’ll end up watching the race from home or ultimately closing shop.
This week on my radio show I had the privilege of interviewing driver Andy Belmont. I consider Andy a friend and one thing I respect about Andy is he speaks his mind. He’ll tell it like it is even when it’s not the popular opinion. But in most cases Andy is spot-on.
In our talk, several discussion points stood out in my mind. But one point keeps ringing in my head and it surrounds how the sport (ARCA & NASCAR) has changed. From the cost of doing business to actual team business tactics on obtaining sponsorships – they’ve all changed from the way it was done in the past. It’s the new NASCAR.
It seems like it was only yesterday the big discussion was about "field fillers" because the Nextel Cup Series didn’t have enough cars in a 43-car field that could call themselves competitive. Today, competitive drivers and sponsors are going home instead of spending race day on the track and in my opinion that’s criminal.
Millions of dollars are thrown at one chance, one shot to make a weekend race. It’s past the point of ridiculous!
The No. 72 CJM racing team has decided to pull the plug on their Nextel Cup Series efforts and go Busch racing. I applaud this move. It’s a good sound business decision and I think many more should follow CJM's example.
Michael Waltrip’s NAPA team can’t make a race these days, Red Bull Racing is struggling, Kenny Wallace has gone from racing every weekend to only when he makes a race and Jeremy Mayfield hasn’t seen the green flag drop on a Sunday afternoon this season. I feel these teams should revisit their business plans and build their teams within the Busch Series. I say work up - isn’t that what the Busch Series was built for?
Throwing all your eggs in the Nextel Cup Series basket is proving to be a mistake for these teams. Especially for some of these start-up teams and in today’s racing environment it won’t take too long before your dreams end up burnt scrambled eggs sitting at the bottom of the garbage can.
March 15, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Starting a second operation, building new cars, hiring new crew members, etc, etc, so that you can race on Saturday if you don't qualify Friday for Sunday makes good sense????
In the case of the 72 - a team that lacks major manufacturer support, lacks a high profile sponsor, lacks the equipment, facilities, and personel to compete with any success at the Cup level - foregoing their current Cup program DOES make sense.
Actually all but two of the current single car teams - start up or not - should consider this option. the one exception being Robby and the 7 team - running strong so far & lovin' 14th, and the BDR car.
But for the MWR and Team Red Bull camps- this is not an option. Especially since they are Toyota's flagship teams. The millions of dollars that are thrown at their qualifying attempts each weekend are well spent beacause if these teams don't start making a strong run soon, then Toyota's season is a failure.
Personally, I think it's funny as hell, and kind of sad at the same time MWR and TRB resources that the 22 is the best performing Toyota right now.
These guys seriously need some ENGINEERS.
Or something.
Somebody with a pocket protector.
Or a degree in rocket science.
Posted by: the6and9 | Mar 15, 2007 1:35:17 PM
Mike, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!
I have been thinking about this subject since Daytona. If I was able to post blogs on TR I would have written about this subject two weeks ago.
I've been telling anyone who will listen that Red Bull should have started out in the Busch series. I know Brian Vickers has won in the Cup series, but there is no reason to be ashamed of taking a start up team to the lower level of the sport.
David Reutimann can't run the Dream Machine AND the Domino's Camry in the Busch series, so he has to attempt both events. But maybe Michael Waltrip should take his NAPA Camry and join Busch. (And then he would be a regular on DirecTV's Hot Pass.)
I can't see any way that Jeremy Mayfield will get anywhere near the top 35 this season. And with the possibility that qualifying might be rained out at Atlanta Motor Speedway tomorrow, it might be another week before he can attempt to qualify for an event.
There is just too much competition in the Cup level and with the “Top 35” rule, the start up teams - especially those in Toyota - can’t even get through inspection to get on the track for practice.
If NASCAR wants to provide an opportunity for “everyone” to participate in the Nextel Cup Series, they need to adjust their rules to allow “everyone” the opportunity to participate in the race, not just show up at the track. (This is another subject I would focus on.)
But until that happens, there are a few teams that should think about the “big picture” and admit they probably won’t race on Sunday, but have a better opportunity to do so on Saturday. At least they would have their sponsor on the track for more than a few laps and might even pick up a win.
I applaud Mr. Belmont and I hope CJM Racing makes every race in the Busch series and finishes well above the top 30 or 35.
Well done, Mike, and thanks again!
Posted by: Shirley | Mar 15, 2007 2:14:02 PM
NASCAR let the sport get like baseball. Where there are the "dollar" teams Yankees/Boston etc. buying titles, while the smaller teams just fill the field. NASCAR's small Cup teams teams aren't the only ones to lose out. Big teams need big purses. Big purses need big dollars from TV etc. Guess who pays...We do! Ticket prices skyrocket and the big teams drawing in the big TV dollars get special treatment (Top 35, etc.). It used to be about the drivers racing for the win...Now it's about who's soft drink or gas gets top promotion and the racing sucks.
Busch teams are the way to go. New Cup teams can never break into the Mega-Team club. But, for now, families can afford the Busch races and see all the same stars. For my dollar, it's the Busch Series. Also, if there were a viable alternative to FranceCar, I'd watch it. France and his croonies have monopolized and micro-managed NASCAR to death!
Posted by: Keith | Mar 15, 2007 3:36:07 PM
This is why the top 35 rule has to go. It worked great when 44 cars would show up for 43 spots, but when you have over 50 , not so great. It won't ever change, so let France wreck his sport, people survived before NASCAR, so I'm sure we'll go on after.
Posted by: joe | Mar 15, 2007 4:04:59 PM
What are CJM Racing and company going to accomplish in BGN? Dropping down to BGN makes no sense because it is no longer possible for a team to make any money down there.
The Top-35 rule needs to be expanded to a Top-50 or more rule; the sport can't afford to keep sending teams home after qualifying.
Posted by: Mike Daly | Mar 15, 2007 5:22:51 PM
Mike Daly,
You like racing, and hard racing...How about a "Top 10 or Top 5" rule. LOL, no you can't pick "Let them all race." But, wouldn't even you think it was fairer to let people in on honest times than who they had painted on the hood? Just askin'
Posted by: Keith | Mar 15, 2007 5:39:32 PM
Good Post Harp! I concur, It's a sad day when there is no more "Tide Ride" in the show thanks to the the Mega teams...I think Ol Morgan Shepard deserves an "Atta Boy"...I hate to seem him struggle, When I know he'd do better in the Trucks...and not as good in Busch due to the "Wackers"
Posted by: Tbfka#5 | Mar 15, 2007 8:10:46 PM
Let me start first by telling a true gentleman Bill France Jr. to please get well soon.
First off Daly, I massively dont know what spaceship you landed on. Not a shot, but sorry. You sit there, and while I DO RESPECT YOUR OPINION.Get from behind your computer for a weekend and work on pit road.
What will the teams gain from dropping to ARCA or Busch? You might have a Busch series again. That in itself is a concept, that is if Helton and Brian can actaully leave the NON Busch guys out.
Now on to Toyota, there are plenty of good members they have from the shop and at the track.Thats not the issue, it goes back to the "talent pool" in the up and coming series. The drivers arent there, thus you get MW, DJ and Jermey.
I cant come at Balney, he is making races, nor AJ, nor Vickers. They are doing what they should.
The major problem is as someone stated earlier, they are far from there prime anymore and sorry Mikey is a good owner but I will leave that there.
JM, you attacked Ray for last season. Hello, we all knew then and its ironic that you cant produce now. Guess as you walked around and said @ testing "that was EMS fault". Lets see dont think so.
By the way , if NASCAR hadnt have killed the Busch and ARCA series as they have you would have the likes of the drivers that are retiring,Mark M came thru ARCA, Benson, Rusty etc.
Posted by: Kurt2 | Mar 15, 2007 8:36:30 PM
Sorry, thanks Harper for posting this topic.. You nailed it, and its good to see it finally mentioned
Posted by: Kurt2 | Mar 15, 2007 8:37:38 PM
Mike Harper has raised a great point - it is a "totally different level of business" - "a new NASCAR" as it were. I mean forget "field fillers" - I remember when the short track races used to cap at 30-35 starters. When they went to 43-car fields at every race (late 80s or early 90s, I've forgotten exactly when), many commentators were worried if the short tracks could handle the larger fields. It was shortly thereafter you began to see shorter tracks disappear from the schedule and all the newer cookie-cutter speedways emerge to take their place.
In the late 80s, the estimate for how much a single Winston Cup car cost to build and prep was between $40,000 and $60,000. After Ray Evernham's 3 Nextel Cup cars got totalled in the Bud Shootout, he said the last lap cost him half a million dollars.
So, in 20 years we've gone from 60 grand a car to 160 grand a car. Do the math. You're building two cars per driver per track (22 different tracks now), and racing 36 times (plus the Shoot-out and the All-Star Challenge) versus 28+2 races back in the day. Even if you only need, say, 15 different car types (you can use the Daytona car at Talladega, Infineon car at the Glen, Pocono car at Indy), still that's 30 different cars x $160,000 - that's almost 5 million dollars in cars for one driver!
Multiply by 2, 3, 4 drivers...add in salaries and benefits for hundreds of employees, 6-7 figure salaries for your drivers, tires for races and tests, the utility bills for the shop(s), etc. etc. The biggest teams are 50 million dollar businesses, easy. Probably more like 100 million dollars. Like the astronauts in "The Right Stuff" said - no bucks, no Buck Rogers.
No offense Keith, but "big teams need big purses"...I don't know. I feel like talking about the purse is so 1997. I mean, if you are counting on the purse to make ends meet, chances are you are not making the show anymore anyway.
And what are the owners (and of course, the sponsors) paying for now? Hundreths of second off lap times. Another thing that's changed - teams used to unload the car. And practice. And then work on the car. And practice some more. Qualify. Then practice some more. And then practice again. Now, it's unload. Practice (maybe). Qualify. Practice again (unless it's an impound race). And then race. You've got to be ready to go right off the truck. Yeah, that all costs lots more money - but it even more puts a premium on driver-crew communication. Guys like Knauss and Reiser who can take a driver's input and transfer that into a program of action on how to set up (and before that, construct) a car (or cars) - worth their weight in gold. Literally.
The Top 35 rule makes perfect sense given the new realities. If the sponsors are ponying up 20-30-40 million dollars a year, they exepct to see the car on Fox or ABC or whatever every week. So, the Top 35 rule is NASCAR's way of guaranteeing a return on investment for those who choose to support its "independent contractors".
Red Bull and Napa and Dominio's and UPS knew what they were getting into. (Or maybe not?) It will be interesting to see how long these corporate marketing departments want to tough it out. I'm sure as the year goes along we'll see the natural selection process of the marketplace continue to do its work. Maybe, as Mike Harper and Shirley seem to think, teams will see a better investment value in racing Busch. We'll see - I would agree though, that the 72 team won't be the last to make this decision this year. And we may we'll see other teams get out of the business entirely.
Posted by: Leonard | Mar 16, 2007 2:47:41 AM
I'm confused! If the current Busch-level teams can't get into a Busch race because of all the Cup drivers participating, what makes you think that MWR, etc., would be able to get into those same races?
Posted by: SrRaceFan | Mar 16, 2007 8:58:28 AM
Leonard,
No offense taken...I understand that the "Big Purses" are a fraction of an uber team's income. However, those larger purses do have a direct effect on what we pay at the gate.
Posted by: Keith | Mar 16, 2007 9:49:33 AM
SrRaceFan: Excellent point: when something like 50% of the field in Busch is Cup teams, why will former Cup guys like CJM or Waltrip do any better there?
Leonard: excellent point about the Toyota teams. Yeah, it's been a rocky start, but look elsewhere in racing and show me where they have failed. They dominated trucks in three years, right? So don't call their Cup foray a failure after three races! Blaney has long been a very competent driver, and Jarrett and Vickers certainly have the ability to drive top ten cars. Toyota just needs time to get its engineering act together, a challenge made even tougher by the COT. Were I MWR or BDR or Red Bull, I'd have been spending a whole lot of my time on that new car, and might have even delayed my Cup debut until next year.
I keep being fascinated by (Keith, don't read this part) the English football system: you set a given number of teams in Cup - maybe 43. They run every race. Everyone else runs Busch. At the end of the year, the bottom 5-8 teams from Cup drop down to Busch, the top 5-8 Busch teams move up to Cup for the following year. No going home Saturday, and you focus on one series each year. A new team shows up? It's a Busch team until it earns its way into Cup.
Posted by: Doug | Mar 16, 2007 10:56:12 AM
Mike, you said: I feel these teams should revisit their business plans and build their teams within the Busch Series. I say work up - isn’t that what the Busch Series was built for?
Maybe that was the original intent for the Busch Series, but where is it today? It's just another practice for the Cup drivers. I still maintain that NASCAR needs to have a driver designate which series he'll race in for the entire season - and then make him stick to it. No switching back & forth and definitely no running in BOTH series! I used to enjoy Busch races and I definitely love Cup racing, but am getting really tired of the Cup guys taking money away from the Busch teams.
Anyone have any good suggestions for fixing the Busch problems? Well, I mean other than getting rid of Brian....
Posted by: SrRaceFan | Mar 16, 2007 11:59:37 AM
Fix the Busch series? One thing I know is that NASCAR doesn't seem very interested in doing much of anything as its AAA league gets strangled to death. What effect will the COT have, since it's not being used in Busch?
Were I NASCAR, my first study would be whether I can run the Busch series at other tracks every weekend, including some smaller ones. Make it logistically difficult, if not impossible, for Cup drivers to drive Busch. Market Busch as what it should be - AAA racing, one step down from the majors, but fine racing nonetheless. If you need a companion race for economic reasons, let trucks and ARCA alternate sharing weekends with Cup and Busch: one weekend it's Cup/ARCA at one track, Busch/trucks at another; the following week, it's Cup/trucks in one venue, Busch/ARCA at another.
Posted by: Doug | Mar 16, 2007 1:49:30 PM
Keith:
You are right about the cost of races for fans. Out. of. control. It's close to $100 for the cheapest seat at most tracks now. Unless you live within a few hours of the track, attending the race will set you back hundreds of dollars - maybe it's worth it for a destination race like Daytona or Vegas, but not so for many others...esp. if you have a family...
Doug:
The Relegation System. Very interesting to think about. For NASCAR to limit who can qualify/race in that draconian a fashion, they'd probably have to create a formal franchise system. They don't seem to want to do that.
Why do we have the Busch Series? Who knows? Back when it was the Late Model Sportsman series, I thought it was for old Cup cars. Maybe not? Not sure it plays the AAA/Driver training ground role it once did, either. Honestly, I don't think NASCAR minds the Cup guys who race in the Busch series - it certainly increases fan interest and TV ratings.
Posted by: Leonard | Mar 16, 2007 5:34:11 PM
Doug, sounds like a very good idea! I watched the Busch practice today - a ton of Cup drivers in there - drat!
Oh well, at least I'll enjoy the truck race tonight - lots of beating' & bangin' - my favorite kind of race!
Posted by: SrRaceFan | Mar 16, 2007 5:35:28 PM
Hey Mike,
Well done topic.
At first was not a fan of the top 35. Thought top 20 was better. Then realized that those at the bottom are the ones that need the most help. Am resolved to it.
I predicted a victory for Toyota on the cup level this year. Ha, that thinking coupled with hanging on to the 2 car has got me solid on the bottom of fantasy racing. Used to know what the heck was going on in this sport. Now wishful thinking.
The 96 car with Tony Raines was a startup in cup, right? Troy & Roger bought into a good plan signing another texan with that champs provisional to get off the ground.
Really thought Bradshaw was "doing it the right way" to build into cup. He & Fitz bought ALOT of sheet metal. They were gone almost like the old Colts.
If it takes some busch runs to satisfy those "great expectations", who could blame them for that.
We are all watching some very important times for our sport. Not really sure at this point what to wish for.
Posted by: Larry | Mar 16, 2007 7:39:31 PM
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