Endangered List: Dodge's departure may be the beginning of end for Truck series

Is NASCAR's Truck tour facing eventual extinction?

Dodge is pulling all its Truck series support, and the addition of the Grand American road-racing series to NASCAR's official portfolio has led to intense speculation that Grand Am will soon have a much higher profile and might even supplant the Truck series in NASCAR's national touring operations.

Sprint Cup teams and automakers say they are already feeling increased pressure to add Grand Am to their operations.

A good Grand Am budget right now is about $1.5 million, for 15 races or so. That's half the price of a good Truck sponsorship, which runs from $3 million to $5 million a year. But one worry is if Cup owners get involved in Grand Am racing, the annual team budget could quickly escalate by $3 million to $7 million.

Still, the possibility of adding, say, Tony Stewart or Jimmie Johnson to a Grand Am field would certainly raise the visibility of that tour and probably ratings and crowd appeal, too.

Ford team owner Jack Roush, who once ran one of the country's top road racing operations, said: "I think there's a NASCAR road-racing series coming, regardless of whether the Truck series goes away. And for us to be able to road race again would be a great thing.

"It would be cool, and I would enjoy having a Daytona Prototype car for the 24 Hours in 2009, and for a handful of other races, too, but I think it may be too late to get that going for next year. But maybe 2010."

The Truck series currently is under some pressure, with Chrysler's abrupt decision to withdraw Dodge factory support. Dodge was once NASCAR's Truck series powerhouse, but it has only backed one team this season.

What will Dodge's withdrawal mean?

"I think there is a distinct possibility that in the foreseeable future, based on the economy and what the manufacturers have done, there is a reasonable chance that the Truck series will go away," Roush says. "Not in 2009, but maybe in 2010 or 2011.

"I hope that doesn't happen. You look at it, and 40 percent of the people who drive into these racetracks are coming in in either SUVs or pickup trucks. So trucks are still relevant to what we're trying to do here. But there's a lot of pressure, and the Truck series may well be a casualty of that…."

J.D. Gibbs, a Toyota team owner, said: "Dodge pulling out of Trucks, that's not good. We had a Truck team for a while, and lost our shirts. Trucks have always been a hard sell."

Pat Suhy, General Motors' NASCAR field boss, said that Chevrolet is satisfied with its current six-team Truck program. Ron Hornaday won Saturday at Gateway in one of Kevin Harvick's trucks.

"We've enjoyed the activity we have going on in the Truck series," Suhy said. "Ron's win helps us gain some ground in the manufacturers' race. (GM trails Toyota.)

"But it's what we've been talking since late June -- that the domestic automakers are struggling with the North American auto market. So we're not leaving any stone unturned, in evaluating all our racing programs.

"So certainly there will be questions from every other manufacturer: ‘If Dodge is not going to this, then why are we doing it? What's in it for us?' But I still think there is value in it for us. And there is still good competition in the Truck series, even without Dodge.

"I've still heard various reports about what the Dodge pullout may be, and it appears to go deeper than what I first thought."

Ford's Roush complains that Dodge, when it first entered Truck racing, upset the sport's economic playing field by subsidizing its NASCAR teams and undercutting rivals' sponsorships. And Roush said that Toyota followed that game plan, too, making Truck racing even more expensive.

Suhy agreed: "That's what drove up the price of poker. And it's happened here in the Cup garage, too. The unfortunate part is that it's just not sustainable in the current economic climate."

Roush does not appear to be very sympathetic with Dodge, claiming that Dodge had taken two of his sponsors early on.

"When Dodge first came into NASCAR Trucks, they came in with money and accepted half of what the going rate was for a sponsorship then. Dodge really set up the Truck series to be a ‘manufacturers' series, because of their money -- support which was unprecedented.

"And when Toyota came in, it took another turn.

"So right now, the Truck series, because NASCAR has been unable to manage it, is dependent on manufacturers to support it … because of what Dodge originally did and what Toyota has done."