Twilight: Sun is setting on NASCAR's old ways

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Idle musings on a warm, sunny Arizona fall afternoon, awaiting another of those incredibly gorgeous sunsets, when the dry blue sky turns so dramatically purple and pink, highlighting the jagged peaks of the mountains surrounding this vast valley….

Awaiting Round Nine of the 10-round Chase for the Sprint Cup, now down to Jimmie Johnson vs. Carl Edwards…. Chevrolet vs. Ford…. crew chief Chad Knaus vs. Bob Osborne and car owner Rick Hendrick vs. Jack Roush, a battle of goliaths.

On the most picturesque landscape on the NASCAR tour, is the sandy, flat one-mile track west of Phoenix, where all those cotton fields and farmlands have vanished in the past few years, swallowed up by an ever-expanding metropolis that is the biggest town between Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles, and the fifth-largest city in the country.

This is one of the key markets for NASCAR, and business is booming out here. Is NASCAR doing all it can to milk this market?

It sure would be nice if one of the sport's long-suffering underdog teams -- think of the late Alan Kulwicki here -- could somehow make a championship bid next season. Fans love to root for an underdog. But not here, not this time around. Even the powerful Joe Gibbs and Richard Childress operations are struggling to keep up with Hendrick and Roush in this Chase.

The sport's smaller operations are just struggling period:

❑ Jeff Moorad and Tom Garfinkel are trying to figure out what to do with their team, currently running Toyotas with some customer support from Gibbs.

❑ Eddie and Len Wood are debating their team's future, possibly keeping Bill Elliott around yet another year.

❑ DEI appears to be on the ropes; J.J. Yeley said he can get a ride there if he can find a $12 million sponsor (so he's put himself up on e-Bay).

❑ Chip Ganassi, down to 1½ sponsors for an operation that began the season with three full teams, is apparently trying to merge/sell/whatever, although it's not clear how a Dodge team might mesh with a Chevy company such as DEI. Can Ganassi deal with his Target sponsorship? Can Ganassi deal with his Juan Pablo Montoya contract? Where does that part-time Wrigley's sponsorship fit in?

General Motors on Friday apparently abandoned its plans to buy Chrysler. But GM then offered a chilling scenario in which it would run out of cash liquidity sometime next season, probably hoping to prod politicians into pumping more money into the auto-financing department.

❑ George Gillett, who hasn't been seen at a track in a long, long time, doesn't seem to have much going his way right now either (and Ray Evernham is all but completely out of the picture).

❑ Petty Enterprises has so many rumors swirling around it that it's like swatting flies to get at what really might happen next; one key question is will Bobby Labonte be back in No. 43 next year -- yes, he's signed a new contract, but there is still no sponsorship. If Labonte is looking, where? He does have that champion's provisional, but if there are only 30 or so fully-funded Cup teams for next season, that might not be as much of a plus.

Revolving doors

Tony Stewart, NASCAR's newest team owner, said that his first few months in this part of the game have been eye-openers, particularly in light of the financial problems surrounding GM, which is helping bankroll his step up to owner:

"I'm not worried so much about trying to cut back as I am trying to find the funds we need to get the job done.

"These are bigger numbers than I've ever dealt with. But it's just like chips of a different color. If it was cash, it would probably scare me to death.

"Your concerns are because you're passionate about the company, about General Motors and Chevrolet. Obviously the economy is bad right now, and everybody is suffering. The worst part of that is there have to be layoffs. That's the part you worry about the most.

"Obviously as a team owner you have to worry about that, because it trickles down to us."

Stewart himself is both hiring and laying off. "It is like a buffet right now, with so many people getting released from teams and trying to get jobs for next year," Stewart said.

"Some of these people being let go are really high up in the organization. So there are some good people out there."

Stewart said he expects to have a crew chief and competition director signed in the next few days and make an announcement at Homestead. Tony Gibson, from DEI, who has worked with Mark Martin this season, is expected to be the crew chief. Bobby Hutchens, from the Richard Childress and DEI camps, will be the competition director.

Even Gibbs and Hendrick are cutting jobs, a dozen each.

Given all that, well, a wild and woolly race this afternoon might be just the ticket to change the dynamic.

And given the pressure that so many drivers and crewmen are under at the moment, sweating out their jobs, trying to impress whatever sponsors might be watching, today's Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 could be filled with more curious twists than usual. Phoenix in the fall, remember, has long been a major-league pothole on the way to a title.

So keep an eye on the DEI, Ganassi, Yates and Gillett-Evernham teams in particular. There's a lot of pressure there.

Did Osborne and Edwards pull a fast one at Texas last weekend, stretching gas mileage an amazing 103 miles in winning? Or were they just canny? When teammate Greg Biffle came up eight laps shy of making that scenario work, he had some questions of his own.

But, hey, there has long been the sense that when the title Chase gets down to these final miles that NASCAR officials -- just like in any other major sport -- tend to "let the guys play it out themselves."

Marketing ideas

However, there are some bigger picture topics to consider:

❑ NASCAR is rethinking its planned 2009 expansion of the mid-week testing rules, in light of the ragged U.S. economy. But rather than cut back on such testing, NASCAR executives should instead be working with its promoters to choreograph such test sessions as big "advance PR and marketing" operations for each coming tour race. NASCAR needs to be promoting its own tour tracks, with such testing sessions, and it should turn those testing sessions into big fan-and-media events, with all those souvenir haulers at each test track, with drivers signing autographs at noon, and with fans allowed in to watch it all for free. Do that 10 to 14 days ahead of each tour race, and the sport's many sponsors would love the extra marketing punch.

❑ Is NASCAR over-saturating the sport's world, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. suggests, with too many tour races? Or are promoters simply not promoting hard enough? Hey, baseball teams play 162 games apiece each season (jammed in between April and October), and half of those are home games.

❑ So, with nearly five million people around here, how many will actually jam Phoenix International Raceway for today's race?

This is a track where fans haul in from all over the far West, from as far away as Oregon. But with the economy struggling, this may be a test of just how sharp promoter Bryan Sperber is doing here.

❑ How will NASCAR execs tweak the Chase for 2009, if Johnson, as it appears, clicks off a third straight title? After all, the point of the Chase was to make the fall stretch of the NASCAR schedule more exciting. The basic problem with the current points rules is that a driver is hit too hard for having a bad day, and he doesn't get a big enough boost for finishing, say, in the top three. Roush suggests a mulligan; a better idea might be a separate points system for the 12 men in the title hunt, as Stewart suggests.

❑ A move that NASCAR officials need to consider -- some key changes in the tour dates that some racetracks now enjoy. The point: NASCAR's title chase should feature the sport's 10 best tracks. Loudon, Dover and Martinsville are nice places and put on some good, interesting racing, but they're not Vegas, baby. The first thing the France family should do -- or maybe, since he owns both tracks now, Bruton Smith could do -- is kick off the chase in late September at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Or maybe expand the playoffs to 12 races: 12 drivers in 12 races, and throw in Sonoma, Calif., or Montreal as a road-course ringer.

❑ And how will NASCAR now deal with the new administration in Washington? With Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula One title at just 23, and with Barack Obama soon to be in the White House, NASCAR may need to kick its low-key Drive for Diversity program into a higher gear.

And why not invite the new president to Daytona or California next spring?

■ Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.