Driver Matt Kenseth had a tough night at Phoenix International Raceway, finishing 38th out of 43 cars in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race. That earned him $111,466 in prize money.
But David Gilliland finished 15th in the race and got a paycheck of only $91,658.
How can that be?
NASCAR’s complex and archaic pay structure that taps into several sources of prize money beyond the basic purse for each race.
Here’s how it works: The total NASCAR prize money—$5.1 million for the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix—includes not only the race’s basic purse but several additional “contingency awards” and other special payments.
They include cash from television revenues, specific awards from two dozen manufacturers involved in NASCAR, and money from the Sprint Cup championship points earned in that race.
But perhaps the main contributor to the disorderly payouts is NASCAR’s Winner’s Circle Program, which includes the 12 drivers with the most wins from the prior year.
Those dozen racers—or technically, their team owners—are guaranteed a certain amount of money in each race regardless of how they finish. Kenseth, with two wins in 2007, is a member of that club, and Gilliland, who was winless last year, is not.
And that’s a key reason why Kenseth won more money for finishing 38th in Phoenix than Gilliland did for finishing 15th.
But the biggest payout in a NASCAR Cup race still goes to the winner, and never has the winner won less money than a lower-place finisher, NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said. In Phoenix, for instance, Johnson won $262,111.
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