Brett Bodine was one of the lucky ones this year, as he picked up sponsorship from Hooters restaurants in March after loosing his primary backer at the end of the 2001 season. But 20 years of Cup racing couldn't keep famed Melling Racing on the track without a sponsor. Melling, in its heyday with driver Bill Elliot as its driver, was a championship-caliber team with dozens of wins.
Yet many new companies come into the sport. In the past three years, Pfizer, ALLTEL, Conseco, The Home Depot, Delphi Automotive, America Online, Cingular Wireless, U.S. Sprint, UPS, Rubbermaid, Target, and several others have joined on. But Ralph's Supermarkets, BP-Amoco, Kmart, Kodiak, Oakwood Homes, and others have left.
The human toll in all this turmoil is obvious. Drivers lose their rides and become unemployed or go back to the Busch Series or Truck Series; crewmembers lose their jobs and go in the unemployment line. If they are lucky they may get swallowed up by other teams.
The reality is Winston Cup racing is no different in a down economy than layoffs at Ford or cutbacks at General Electric. But the guys who are going down the tubes helped build this sport. Andy Petree and Travis Carter have been in the sport for decades. Cup racing isn't an investment to them-it is their livelihood.
We all should take notice when the teams and individual members that helped to propel this sport to national prominence fall by the wayside. We should feel for them when they struggle to keep their dreams alive. We should also notice that in many races in 2002, only 43 cars showed up for 43 slots. That hasn't happened in Winston Cup racing on a consistent basis for a very long time.
The teams' fih is directly related to NASCAR's long-term financial health. Maybe some insiders at Daytona should look to the past to better navigate the future.