Do you really think this is news...its called survival...and its only starting !!
#1- DEI: The DEI merger with Ganassi is only one of about 6 deals that is going to happen over the next couple of months.
For about 2 months now, they have been having auctions every 2 weeks at DEI.
#2- Ganassi has been in trouble for a while with his Stock Car Program. Target is tired of funding a sinking ship and wants out of the Stock Car scene all together.
Target will stay on board with the Indy Car and Sports Car divisions of Ganassi.
#3- When someone like Roush bashed Nascar for allowing Toyota in the field he did so because he knew that it would crush the Big 3's domination in Stock Car Racing.
What everyone missed in that deal was the fact that Roush had already been told by Ford that they were winding down on their Stock Car support, and that is why Roush and Yates teamed up on engine building. Yates had already told Ford he was getting out and it was Ford that made the alliance between Roush and Yates to try and keep the Fords on top before crashing out of Nascar.
#4- Nascar...is very much a dying breed and is reaching at everything to try and stay on top. They have been approaching every series out there, regardless of what type of cars. Recently they sealed the deal with Rolex and have already statred to destroy that series.
Witness to fact is what they have done here in Canada.
The once Cascar Series, Canada's leading racing division, was very much a power house series, even in American Standards.
Cascar had a showing of 30 to 40 cars per event and the series had allot of big name corperate sponsors on cars, one of the best TV packages with Speed, and Race Tracks on waiting lists for dates.
Along comes Nascar, and their Lying takes the Green flag !!
A- NO RULE CHANGES B- MUCH BIGGER PURSES C- A SERIES SPONSOR
A- Rule Changes added an additional cost of $20,000 per Team.
The question here is, the Cars were fine until Nascar came along...Why the Changes ??
B- Even though they tell Canadian Tire they are paying out $60,000 a race in prize money, the truth is they payout about 50% of that, and worse yet, some races to win don't even reach $3000.00 in First Place Money.
Since there arrival to Canada, the series has lost at least 50% of the old car count because of the costs to run and poor purse pay.
C- Canadian Tire was not a deal put together by Nascar, it was a deal put together by Tony Novotiny and having a sponsor on board who was willing to pay a MILLION DOLLARS a year made the sale of the series to Nascar more enticing.
So whats the big picture here....
In the next couple of years, Racers and Fans alike will be thanking Toyota for coming to the Stock Car scene. Nascar knew that folks like Toyota would come in and spend a ton of money, fund teams, and bring a whole new brand of Fans, Sponsors, and Money to the series. What Toyota has done, is no different then what they have ever done in any racing series that they have joined. They came in and dominated with Technology, Data Acquisition, Dump Truck loads of money, and when they got to a level where they could say they were Number 1, they started to use the word NO to new teams, sponsors and most of all NASCAR. Pretty smart if you ask me !!
Dodge will pack up and pull out, Ford will follow, and Chevrolet will stand alone on the deck of the S.S.Big3 sinking ship.
The C.O.T. cars of the Cup and Nationwide series will become glorified IROC cars, powered by Toyota engines.
The Truck Series will remain the only true identity to what we once called Stock Cars.
In the Truck Series you will find the odd Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet Teams still hanging on to their multi million dollar investments that they made in the one time Cup Series and Nationwide Series. With Nascar providing the tools to destruction, more teams like DEI and Ganassi will have no choice but to join hands, but they need to be careful.
Life jackets will be the number one mandatory colthing apparel to wear as this ship is still sinking.
IF...and I mean IF... The C.O.T. car would have stayed on the drawing board instead of becoming a mandatory race car, there would be several teams still in the position to operate as normal. The cost to refit shops for the C.O.T. program was never taken into consideration by Nascar...why
Because they were the ones that would never have to dip into their wallets in order to continue racing.
The Cost of Racing went way up...as the money proceeds by Sponsorships went down !!
As Fans, the only complaint you have about the C.O.T. is it is boring to watch and the cars all look the same.
To Race Teams the C.O.T. was the biggest investment they have ever made in the past 50 years of Cup Racing, but more importantly, at the same time the C.O.T. program also caused the biggest loss of money for every race team in more then 50 years.
Cars's that brought $85,000 dollars prior to the C.O.T were now being loaded up and shipped out at a loss of more then $70,000 dollars PER CAR.
Take a normal Cup Shop that inventoried 20 or so cars.....
that was a loss of about $1.5 MILLION DOLLARS !!!
Along with the loss of money, came the loss of jobs.
Fabricators, Body Men, Chassis Men, Wind Tunnel Operations, Mechanics and more would find themselves out of work for the first time ever in their racing careers.
Its not done yet...instead its just starting...and that is very scary.
In a time when the economy is in such trouble, a truly honourable racing series would give back to the Teams and the Fans, because without them- they are just another series without cars and fans.
You can blame DEI...
You can blame Ganassi...
You can blame Toyota....
You can blame Dodge, Ford and Chevrolet...
But if you really want to point your finger in the right direction... Its a money grabbing, lying, cheating, self destructing company that calls Daytona Beach Florida, Home.
Its a good thing they are so close to the water, because when this ship goes down,
they will need a really Big Ocean close by to fall into.
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