NASCAR sticking with 4-team limit
9 Comments Quote selected text Published January 23rd, 2009 in NASCAR NewsNASCAR President Mike Helton said Thursday on the final day of the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour that there will be no backing away from the four-car limit on NASCAR teams. “We haven’t changed our minds on this,” Helton said. “In fact, it’s probably stronger than it’s ever been. We believed it was the right thing to do when we announced it. We believe it’s the right thing to do today.”
NASCAR Chairman Brian France said a cap on the number of teams keeps the sport open to newcomers. He said even in these hard economic times there have been 15 new teams that have recently sought certification from NASCAR because they see an opportunity to break into the sport.
four cars ? if you have joint ventures selling motors chassis and trading info with 6 or 7 teams are you not bigger than the other four car teams ? This is like government , spending money to limit growth.. BIG money wins races . games sports etc. rarely do small payrolls win the big one .
Yes, four teams are enough, we don’t need money hungry team owners in Nascar.
Someone ask Brian “the brain” when was the last time a small team won a cup race? All the competitive cars have some kind of connection to either Roush , Hendrick , Childress , Gibbs or Gillett Evernham. So the team owner might be someone else , but they have to tag onto one of these teams to get anywhere, either chassis , motor or engineering help. So how have you made a 4 car limit help the small teams? Nascar has almost gotten too competitive for the new teams to come in and break through. You know when Pensle and Gannasi have a hard time being consistantly sucessful , that its really hard. I think the 4 car rule is ok , but I just think Brian France is crazy if he thinks this will make it easier for Joe Blow racing to show up with a 1 car team and outrun Jimmie Johnson or Carl Edwards.
The point of the story is Roush tried to capitolize on the economic situation and got his bubble burst.
This 4 car limit sounds good but how real is it? A few of you made good points about these so called “ventures”, sharing technical information and supplier of chassis” scams. It’s just a way to circumvent the rules. Which team will Roush dump? Will Roush’s 5th car move over to Yates to pick up the Gilliland void and make that a 4 car deal? Who knows? I’m sure Tony is getting better stuff from HMS than Haas did on it’s own. The most storied name in American motorsports (Petty) had to reinvent itself to stay afloat because it couldn’t keep or land sponsors yet sponsors are tripping over themselves to give money to RCR and HMS. Four cars my a$$.
gigolo george wrote:
Well put this is what I was getting at too.. Basically if I am the only gas refinery selling DOESNT matter which gas station you buy it from I would get a cut ..LIke the big four this keeps them on top despite running four teams . Same game money money money although this apeals 2 us regular folks . THE Little guy can do it . NOT
George has it right. Lets say Roush sells the 26 team to Yates. The cars are still going to be built at Roush / Fenway and have Yates / Roush engines in them and get all the engineering help from both teams. Then Jack will just write a check to Doug Yates and tell him to pay Jamie McMurray with the check and make it look like business expenses for the engine shop. And Hendrick will do the same for Stewart / Haas. But on paper everyone only has 4 teams…I guess we can pretend it really means anything.
Justin 99 wrote:
Here is the downside for yates everybody knows Roush does not share info with yates on setups and that kind of stuff so yates is really on their own. With the HOF deal the 96 will be in house so everybody wins. Now with the HMS SHR deal the getting full support back and forth which helps everyone involved almost like having a six car team. I would almost bet by 2011 SHR will be up to 4 teams.
I think that is a stretch to stay SHR is going to be 4 teams by 2011. They might be at 3 if Harvick goes, but that is even asking a bit much. Sure, they excelled fast, but unlike some teams that rush into multi car teams, Stewart is doing well. Get Newman a little more consistent and some wins like the good ol’ days, then get a 3rd or 4th driver. Harvick is the only one I’d make an exception for because he has a name. I’d expect a 4th driver to be a younger guy new to Cup and that’s not a good option in your 3rd year of existence. I hope Stewart does what I think is best and that is get your 2 cars as best as they can be before going for a 3rd and 4th.