One of The Last Things NASCAR Needed: GM Cutting Back
This was the kind of news I was afraid we were going to hear sooner, rather than later.
According to Jayski.com, Friday’s SportsBusiness Journal – a weekly trade publication for sports executives – has a story that General Motors is cutting factory support for its Chevy teams that compete in the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series.
While I haven’t seen the story yet, this is the last thing NASCAR needs right now. What happens if that cut in factory support is so substantial that teams big and small may be forced to either extensively scale back from full- to part-time operations – or potentially go out of business altogether?
A statement about the SBJ story indicates that GM’s move likely would hurt some of the biggest teams in the two minor league series of Sprint Cup racing, naming in particular Kevin Harvick Inc., Rusty Wallace Inc., and Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s JR Motorsports operation.
And as for the smaller teams that get little or no support from the factory? Well, I honestly think they’ll continue unimpeded. After all, if they’ve succeeded up to this point with little or no factory cash, what changes with these new developments?
Virtually nothing in my mind.
Chrysler has already slowed the flow of cash to some of its teams, prompting things like the news earlier this week that Richard Petty Motorsports was forced to lay off nine employees because the Chrysler/Dodge cash has been slow in arriving. Hopefully, that should change soon, now that Fiat has purchased Chrysler.
And as for GM, they’ll remain in bankruptcy until it gets its house in order financially. We’ve been hearing about how much leaner GM will become, and my fear is part of that leaning-out process is going to come at the severe expense of NASCAR.
That’s all we needed, more bad news in this sport. Excuse me while I let go a real deep, long sigh. And let me leave you with a question: when will all this bad stuff end – or will it?
Have a good weekend, everyone. I’m off to Michigan for the race and will catch you back here on Monday.
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