Say It Ain’t So That These Wild Rumors Are True
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Doomsday is almost here – at least in NASCAR terms, it would appear.
If NASCAR chairman Brian France hasn’t done so yet, his finger is definitely on the panic button, given some of the wild reports out of Infineon Raceway this weekend.
Among those:
* Just four months after debuting a fourth team to his Sprint Cup racing stable, team owner Richard Childress reportedly may have to scale back to just two teams in 2010 if sponsorship issues are not resolved. And the two drivers that might get the boot? Kevin Harvick and Casey Mears.
* Another report has Sunday’s race winner, Kasey Kahne, driving a Toyota – yet, still remaining with Richard Petty Motorsports – by mid-July. That same report said RPM only has enough spare parts for just one new Dodge engine, yet another victim of Chrysler’s scaling back of its Sprint Cup operation, forcing a possible alliance with Toyota. But with team co-owner George Gillett Jr., apparently having reached an agreement to sell the Montreal Canadians hockey team over the weekend, I wonder if there may be a huge cash infusion into RPM any day now.
* Reportedly following General Motors/Chevrolet’s lead, Toyota is supposedly mulling over taking its support away from the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide Series.
* One rumor that has been floating around for a week continues to grow more legs, that of Red Bull Racing switching to Chevrolets in 2010 – but without factory support. That, despite the fact Red Bull driver Brian Vickers has earned the pole for each of the last two races.
Whether true or not, those reports are just for starters.
But if true, we may soon be watching the implosion of NASCAR.
What’s next? Cutting the schedule from 36 to 18 races? Cutting race fields from 43 cars to 20? Mike Helton and John Darby are laid-off? Tony Stewart may have to go back to being a tow truck driver, like he used to be before he got into NASCAR and Indy Car racing.
I don’t know about you, but if these reports have even a smidgen of fact to them, I’m starting to get very worried, very quickly, about the sport and its future.
(And just when I started thinking NASCAR was going to weather the rough economic storm okay, too).
Catch you Tuesday.
