Report: Dodge to pull out of NASCAR Truck Series at years’ end-UPDATE
8 Comments Quote selected text Published September 6th, 2008 in NASCAR News
UPDATE:
The struggles in the U.S. automobile sales market are trickling down to racing, with the latest blow coming to the Craftsman Truck Series. Dodge will not provide any financial support to any teams in the series in 2009, Dodge Motorsports senior manager Mike Delahanty said.
“We’ll have no factory-funded teams,” Delahanty told ESPN.com. “When times are tough, there are certain things that are lower on the priority list than others.”
Delahanty said the manufacturer’s involvement with the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series is unaffected.
Dodge had been a powerhouse in the Truck Series earlier this decade, winning 46 of 99 races from 2001-04 and championships with drivers Bobby Hamilton in 2004 and Ted Musgrave in 2005
In recent years Dodge has scaled back its involvement, with only Bobby Hamilton Racing-Virginia receiving money from the manufacturer this season. The team ran two trucks for the first 16 races of this season but parked one prior to Saturday’s race at Gateway, as financial constraints forced the team to lay off 15 employees and scale back operations to one team.
Dodge informed the team that its factory support would end this season, and BHR-VA has talked to Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota about a switch for 2009.
There are only two full-time Dodges currently in the Truck Series, the BHR-VA No. 18, driven by Dennis Setzer, and the No. 08 of SS Racing/Greenlight Racing, driven by Jason White. The No. 08 has not received any financial assistance from Dodge this year. Other Dodge trucks have raced on a part-time basis without funding, and that could continue next year.
“There’s a lot of Dodge trucks, engines and parts out there, [teams] may choose to run them,” Delahanty said. “We just won’t be writing the checks to any teams.”
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Sources tell AutoRacingSport.com that Dodge will pull out of the Craftsman Truck Series at the end of this season to focus their efforts on their Sprint Cup and Nationwide programs.
All four auto manufacturers have been affected by the country’s economic slowdown and there has been speculation for some time that Dodge would pull out of NASCAR altogether. However, we are told this is not the case and that they intend to leave only the Truck Series.
Here is a question, and Kenneth maybe you can answer this.
Is the NASCAR rule where you can still run a make/model for 3 years after that make/model left the sport still an active rule?
The reason I ask is because if it is, I see a lot of the privateer teams without any manufacture support now switching from what they are (Chevy/Ford) to the Dodges for at least part of next year.
Hey Fisha, I thought that rule was more or less for situations where Dodge goes from the Intrepid to Charger or whatever and you could continue to run the old model… Don’t know how that works for a manufacturer that’s pulling out.
Can’t say I’m surprised by this. Dodge hasn’t been doing all that great on or off the track, so it makes sense that they’d try to cut back by dropping truck support and focus on the cars. It’s just a matter of time before the lunatics come in here and blame this on Toyota!!!
I know when Pontiac pulled out they could run that body for like 2 or 3 years after, but that was during a different time in NASCAR before all the common templates that they have now.
Good, because the Cup and Nationwide cars need the help. They probably won’t have a driver in the Chase for the first time since 2004. I’m really hoping Kasey can pull off a miracle, though.
Fisha695 wrote:
The only issue I see is the fact that they are supposed to be running a new body next year no?new car new engine or not necessarily
No the Truck series is pretty much set body wise. At least as far as I know, they went to the TOT last year already, where everything from the base of the windshield back is the same on all four makes.
Added to my RSS, Thanks!
Hey! Nice job here! I’ll be dropping by from time to time