Might be Time to Rescind the Four-Teams-Per-Owner Rule
bobbylabonte.com
You can’t help but feel sorry for guys like Reed Sorenson, Jamie McMurray, former Cup champ Bobby Labonte and David Stremme, among others.
With nine races to go, unless some type of miracle occurs, they’ll all likely be without rides at the end of this season.
That’s hard enough to swallow, but compounding the issue is that with team mergers and constriction of overall racing organizations, the odds of guys like Sorenson, McMurray, etc., finding new rides for next season is increasingly becoming gloomier.
Look at how things have played out over the last year. Petty Enterprises merged with Gillett Motorsports, and now will merge further with Yates Racing for 2010.
Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc., at the end of last season. And Richard Childress Racing, which finally realized its long-held goal of expanding to four teams in 2009, may likely have to retrench and cut back to three teams in 2010, given Monday’s news that primary sponsor Jack Daniels will not return in any capacity for next season.
If sufficient replacement sponsorship can’t be found, there’s a good likelihood that Casey Mears may join Labonte, Sorenson and the others on the unemployment line.
All of this reduction in force among drivers could ultimately result in a very good likelihood of race fields of fewer than 43 cars for numerous events next year.
While I’ve long advocated smaller race fields, at the same time you don’t want to see classy guys like Labonte, Mears, Sorenson, McMurray, Stremme and others be left on the outside looking in.
When NASCAR chairman Brian France first instituted plans to limit individual team owners to a maximum of four teams per organization, it made sense. France wanted to open the sport up for more one- and two-car operation team owners to join the fun.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen that. And now, we’re faced with the likelihood that as more teams merge and constrict, the same four-car maximum policy that was supposed to help the sport may actually wind up doing more damage.
I mean, if Jack Roush has the sales staff to sell sponsorships and support five, six or seven race teams, let him do it. If Richard Petty and Doug Yates want to run six cars and can afford it, I don’t see what the problem is.
Why? Think about it. If a driver loses his job, it’s one thing. But if teams continue to constrict in size, or are forced to dissolve a team to meet the NASCAR four-team mandate (like Roush is essentially being forced to do with McMurray’s team), all of a sudden one jobless driver becomes as many as a few hundred people out of a job, too, if the team is forced to fold to abide by NASCAR’s limitation on teams per owner.
While I understand what France wanted to accomplish and why, I think that he should reconsider things for the betterment of the sport – at least on a temporary basis.
Rather, I’d like to see France rescind the four-team-per-owner maximum through the 2012 season. That way, it gives existing teams and their owners the ability to add more drivers and hundreds more employees to the payroll if the organization has enough financial and sponsor wherewithal to support more than four cars under the same roof.
And isn’t keeping people working and being contributing members of society more important to the overall health of the sport than an artificially set mandate that may have already outlived its usefulness?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/21 at 10:18 PMPreaching to the choir my friend, preaching to the choir…
JB, I think you need to get a meeting setup with France, Helton, and anyone else who wants to listen. Give them all your ideas of items to change / fix in NASCAR and let’s see what happens. In the end, common sense will ultimately prevail.
-Taglia
PS: 1Week 4Days to KS.
I’m of two minds on this one. From a humanitarian standpoint, yes, having a driver out of a job, and therefore his whole crew out of jobs, is not something that you want to see, especially in an economy like this one.
On the other hand, from a fan standpoint, is there REALLY going to be a big loss not having Labonte, Mears, Stremme, Sorenson, or McMurray on the track? They may all be nice guys and classy guys but, aside from Labonte, who’s a former champ, what exactly have the other 4 ever accomplished on the Cup level? And you can toss Robby Gordon in there as well, since it looks like Jim Beam is dropping its sponsorship of the 7 car. Heck, it might actually make for better racing without these guys clogging up the track.
Hey George, haven’t talked with you in a while…
The worry I have is that if a driver like Labonte, and McMuray can’t find a ride, where will the drivers come from to run at the cup level? At the same time, it’s hard for an owner to say to a sponsor, well I already have 4 teams, you’ll have to take your money to a different owner.
A big loss, I don’t think so, but if only 25-30 cars start showing up at the track, we may have to rethink that.
I know what NASCAR was trying to do, but I agree with Jerry that for at least the time being, the rule should be removed.
Oh I agree with you guys; if you have an owner who can field 5-6 teams AND find sponsorship for all of them, more power to him. Whether all the teams will be competitive…. is another story.
It would be hard to have 5-6 competitive teams all comming out of one shop…So now I’m back to thinking like you in your first post.
It’s difficult to get that competitive balance. The more teams you field, the more you’re going to stretch yourself thin. Look at Hendrick; even he doesn’t have 4 teams that are competitive on the same level. I totally get the sentiment, but I don’t think it’s feasible to carry it out.
Jerry uses Petty as an example. Well, Petty can barely field *one* competitive team, and Kasey Kahne is a Petty driver only because of the merger. If not for him, Petty would still be spinning his wheels. What would the point be in him fielding 5 or 6 teams if they’re all going to be glorified field-fillers?
I guess my stance is this: I’m in agreement with the rescission of the 4-team limit, but I don’t think you’re going to suddenly see teams expand their operations. And especially not in this economy.
Didnt RCR go to four teams in like 2007 with Blaney?
Isn’t Hendricks getting around that rule right now with Tonys teams? Sure, it has Tonys name on it, but isn’t everything Hendricks concerning the car? IF Roush wanted to keep Jamie, I’m sure he would create another branch of Roush racing to give him a car.
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