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Crisis? What crisis?

By DAVID GREEN

What economic crisis? How can there be an economic crisis? Don't you believe the rumors.

After all, for two bastions of economic responsibility and good stewardship -- the New York Yankees and the United Auto Workers Union -- it is, apparently, the very best of times. In the past few days, the Yanks have signed lefthanded pitcher CC Sabathia to a $161 million contract and the UAW flatly refused to give an inch on its members' kings' ransom salaries and benefits as a condition for the auto industry to receive financial aid from the U.S. government.

How can we go against the good, altruistic and magnanimous judgment those two organizations have demonstrated for so long? And what the heck is wrong with Formula One, whose sanctioning body and team owners agreed Friday to dramatic changes that are expected to cut 30 percent of the cost of competing in the world grand prix series?

But seriously, folks, congratulations to FOTA, the Formula One Teams Association, and the Federation Internationale d le' Automobile (FIA). It's almost a man-bites-dog moment when the most extravagant and over-the-top racing organization in the world demonstrates such common sense. That, it is safe to say, is a pretty strong signal that times are tenuous.

From this corner, it appears that the Yankees, Sabathia and the UAW are all in deeper denial than Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

These are not the only examples of ridiculous, fiddling-while-Rome-burns behavior, but surely Major League Baseball's most iconic team and the UAW's unbelievably obtuse actions top the list -- especially on a weekend when Formula One embraces austerity. (Well, relative austerity, for them.)

In the baseball example, it's hard to decide which is the worst offender -- the Yankees organization which offered the obscene salary or the already-obscenely rich player who accepted it. In the case of the UAW, the stubborn defiance of union leadership in effect thumbs the organization's nose at anybody who may be faced with some belt-tightening in his or her life. "The rest of you chumps can tighten your belts," the UAW tells us. "We're not about to tighten ours."

I was already opposed to the notion of federal government bailouts, especially of financial institutions run aground by Wall Street fat cats. I was a little more sympathetic to the auto industry. It was hard for me to imagine a world without Ford and Chevrolet. Boy, has the UAW ever enlightened me.

After all, Ford, GM and Chrysler never should have given in to the extortion of the UAW. Decades ago, they should have shut down and moved their operations to right-to-work states. You can talk about quality and visionary engineering all you want, but the area in which foreign automakers won this war was in selection of its workforce.

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but it's getting easier and easier for me to root against the Yankees in baseball and for Toyota in NASCAR.

Ominous events in Asia and Europe

By DAVID GREEN

This is the chance you take with you get so deeply involved with companies outside the specific industry of automobile racing. Your fortunes become tied to theirs.

It didn't make much of a splash on TR.com or any other NASCAR-centric news outlet, but Honda and Audi pulled out of racing this week -- Honda departing glamorous Formula One, and Audi abandoning the European and American Le Mans series.

The two manufacturers were at opposite ends of the racing spectrum; Honda was pretty darned inept in its most recent F1 endeavors, while Audi was all but unbeatable with its turbodiesel-powered sports prototypes.

But it was the bottom line, not the finish line, which counted.

Toyota hastened to assure that it was not going to depart F1. This is now the world's premier automaker and, without much question, the most successful financially. The question is how long will even Toyota be able to thrive in the thickening cloud of global economic chaos?

Audi still plans to compete in some elite endurance races this year, including Sebring. And Honda, as far as anyone knows, will fulfill its obligations as engine supplier for the Indy Racing League. This year.

As for Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, it seems ludicrous for anyone to think there's not a real serious possibility that their NASCAR endeavors are going to be all but deleted. If the Big 3 executives' pleas to Congress are not exaggerated, they're going to go belly-up without a government bailout, and if they get the bailout, how sympathetic toward auto racing do you think elected officials who oversee what they do with their Christmas presents are going to be?

Just about as sympathetic as they were toward the auto company CEOs using their corporate jets to make their first pilgrimage to D.C. to beg for a handout, I would suspect.

Likewise, we have put all our NASCAR eggs into a handful of baskets as far as the racing industry is concerned. Now, let's see what happens if manufacturers bail or collapse and corporate sponsorship money from non-automotive sources dries up. Let's see if Hendrick, Roush and one or two other superteams, sans $40 to $50 million in marketing revenue, can or will still put a full field of cars on the tracks.

Or, perhaps the depressed economy will make it possible for a few of the have-nots to get their feet in the door and there will be a reprise of the independent team in a NASCAR world that has seen the economy level the playing field in a way that would impress even Gary Nelson. And perhaps, with the Middle East sheiks having to cut down from a dozen to only eight or nine multibillion dollar mansions because of slumping oil prices, NASCAR fans will actually be better able to afford to attend a race or two than they were able to during our times of so-called prosperity.

In Great Depression I, as we may soon begin referring to it, auto racing survived. Indianapolis, which closed six years because of global war, did not miss a 500 during the hard times between world wars.

Even in a worst-case economic scenario, I suspect there will be a 2009 NASCAR season. It's going to be interesting to find out the details of just what it's going to be like.

Surely we learned a long time ago we are not insulated from rumblings on other continents, as many of us felt right up until Dec. 7, 1941. It does, indeed, matter to NASCAR fans that Honda and Audi are hitting the kill switch on significant racing enterprises. Or, at least, it should.