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Tough Times: Not as bad as things were in 1973, '74 or '79
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Published: July 19, 2008
Up in Detroit, there are cutbacks here and cutbacks there. And NASCAR, even though it's a cheap marketing tool in the grand scheme of things, might well feel the pinch, too.
How deeply, well that's up for debate, and for NASCAR men to sweat out.
Compared to what NASCAR execs had faced in dealing with fallout from the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the ensuing fuel crises of 1974 and 1979, this might be a walk in the park, relatively speaking.
Back then, stock-car racing was still reeling from the Detroit walkout in 1971. Ford and Dodge had packed up everything and abandoned NASCAR, and only a couple of teams, such as Junior Johnson's, had any factory backing at all. And for several years, there were three major full-time teams.
Now, by contrast, General Motors supports 13 major Sprint Cup teams, Ford has eight factory teams, Dodge and Toyota have 10 each. So there's plenty of room for pruning.
Of course any cutbacks in NASCAR might be more marketing cosmetics than anything, because, all things considered, car-makers don't spend all that much on this sport, maybe $100 million each per year. Detroit's NASCAR efforts are supported in large part by independent sponsors, from General Mills to Caterpillar to Lowe's to the U.S. Army.
However, in the current economic climate, NASCAR and its business partners have to face perceptions as much as realities. And the obvious perception might be that NASCAR teams waste gasoline, which -- compared to airlines, for one -- isn't quite the case. But don't expect NASCAR to play the game it did in the 1970s by cutting the length of races by 10 percent -- the Daytona 450? -- to fight that appearance of extravagance.
What the economic crunch most will likely do is:
□ keep the Nationwide series running its cars another year instead of making the costly transition to a version of the car-of-tomorrow;
□ produce more Detroit cutbacks in the Truck series, and possibly the Nationwide series, with more emphasis on Cup marketing;
□ lead to less deep-engineering development, which means little hope for a new Ford engine, and possibly delays in the already sluggish rollout of the new Dodge engine.
Chevrolet's racing boss Mark Kent, Dodge's Mike Accavitti, and Toyota's Lee White are NASCAR veterans.
But into this new environment comes Ford's Brian Wolfe, taking over as racing boss, a job Dan Davis held the past 11 years. Wolfe, a 26-year Ford veteran, was given the job only two weeks ago but says "I am ready to go."
Wolfe, 47, has been an amateur drag-racer for years, so he's a car guy.
"I bought my first car at 15 -- a 428 Ford Cobra Jet Fairlane, which I still own. Hours after I picked up my license, I was racing….
"When I started at Ford after college, the second car I bought new was an '86 Mustang GT, the first year of the fuel-injected cars.
"When I first started to work on that car was when I first got involved in motorsports … though my involvement was more unofficial. There was a guy named Hank Durshon working at Ford Racing and a guy named Wally Beeber in the Five-Liter group -- and hardware called the GT-40 parts that were going to be used as a production upgrade to the next motor. For some reason that upgrade didn't happen."
Beeber ended up with the parts and told Durshon they weren't being used. Durshon gave them to Wolfe, saying: "Let me give you these things to put on your car to test, and you can give us some feedback."
Where all that helps Wolfe in NASCAR might be curious.
Ford's NASCAR program lately has been Jack Roush. It used to be Roush and fellow owner Robert Yates, but the two merged engine operations two years ago, and then Yates officially retired at the end of 2007, leaving his son Doug to set up a new two-team shop -- on the Roush Racing campus.
Technologically, Detroit's job for many years has been to provide the large-scale development programs that it is best equipped for, rather than just cranking pistons and other high-tech parts. Detroit, though, has been something of a clearinghouse for technology, if not parts.
Detroit's biggest job in NASCAR has been providing marketing punch on telecasts, via commercials, and in creating marketing and technological synergies, and in keeping top-name drivers under contract.
One of Wolfe's first jobs will be to assess his driver lineup: Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, David Ragan, David Gilliland, Travis Kvapil, and the Bill Elliott-Marcos Ambrose-Jon Wood mix-and-match in the Woods' camp.
Edwards and Biffle have just re-signed with Roush; Ragan, in his second season, has improved dramatically; McMurray appears to be something of a question mark. Gilliland and Kvapil, Yates' two drivers, have done so-so this season, but then Yates is completely rebuilding his team, which has to be a drawback (though Gilliland did have a great shot at winning Sonoma).
However a seeming problem at Ford, over the past few years since the hyper-energetic Michael Kranefuss held the reins, has been to overemphasize technology as a panacea. Whether Edsel Ford, the ultimate boss here, has a good handle on that part of the equation, with Wolfe, should be quickly seen.
Ford's 2003 NASCAR championship, with Kenseth and crew chief Robbie Reiser, was a triumph of organization and methodical, bone-crushing consistency. Ford's 2004 NASCAR title, with Kurt Busch and crew chief Jimmy Fennig, was classic old-school.
But Chevy's Tony Stewart won the title in 2005, and Chevy's Jimmie Johnson won in 2006 and 2007.
This year's title appears as if it will come down to Toyota's Kyle Busch, Stewart and Denny Hamlin, Chevy's Jeff Gordon, Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer, and Ford's Edwards, Biffle and Kenseth. Dodge's Kasey Kahne is hanging in there, but it's hard to tell how much staying power the Evernham-Gillett operation might have.
One question: What can Wolfe add to this year's championship dynamic for Roush?
■ Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.
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