NASCAR Elite Series Cancellation - Have Car, Will Race

From a corporate standpoint, NASCAR will save money by paring its cost from managing eight series to four, including the two Grand National divisions and two Modified tours.

Still, NASCAR's decision leaves a couple hundred of its driver/members wondering what they can do next year with the thousands of dollars they have invested in cars and equipment to race in NASCAR's junior leagues.

"I feel sorry for those guys," says J.R. Scott, who runs the Champion Racing Association, an 18-race series in Diercks' Midwestern backyard. "They are racing dinosaurs.

"As the cars are raced today, there isn't another series east of the Rockies where they can compete and hope to win. NASCAR created a platform so different from anything else being raced today that it simply became too expensive for most people to afford. And now the expense is killing the series."

"The writing has been on the wall for a number of seasons," Scott says. "Look at car counts and the cost of racing and the number of tracks willing to take the series. It shouldn't be a surprise."

The biggest hurdle is the basic chassis. The Elite Division uses a Cup/Busch style perimeter chassis with frame and rollcage closely following the outline of the bodywork. Just about all other series use a straight-rail chassis, with the right-side suspension hanging off the side of the car from extensions, and the chassis not much more than half the width of the bodywork.

"There are a lot of pieces that can be used from an Elite Division car to create a straight-rail car," says Chuck Carruthers, crewchief for Jefferson's three titles. "You can do it for probably $10,000 or so."

There is one other thing the loss of the Elite Division means to drivers: There will be no reasonably priced touring series that carries the NASCAR name.

Owners of Nextel Cup teams look at success in a touring series as an indication a driver can compete on a variety of ovals, as opposed to being a one-track-wonder at his hometown venue. As team owners cast a wider net in their talent hunt, young stock car drivers also must compete with those in open-wheel racing series.

"The Elite Division offered us a great variety of tracks," says Diercks. "The cars are so much alike that the difference really comes down to driving talent and how well a team can set up a car. It is a great way to develop.

"I understand, I guess, why NASCAR has to kill it off. I just hope someone comes along with another series that will offer something similar."

Just like drivers trying to find a new home for their cars, race sanctioning bodies are trying to figure out if they can take on the touring cars and make a profit even though NASCAR says there isn't one.

The American Speed Association was the first-and perhaps the only-organization to come up with an option.

Others have all but ruled it out.

Paul Warner, media relations director with United Speed Alliance Racing (USAR), says the organization's plate is already full with its expansion on the East Coast.

"We keep adding series so we don't have to send drivers home," he says.

Warner says the USAR may make a push toward the Midwest in the next couple years, but it would be with the cars it already races.

"The USAR cars are basically a Busch Series car," he says. "The Elite Division cars are entirely different. We may be able to offer a touring series, but it wouldn't be for the cars the Elite drivers are in today."

The ASA Late Model Series also would be a poor fit for the cars.

Scott says he could offer drivers a home in his CRA, but if they want to win, they'll have to build a new chassis.

"And then they are still stuck with the old chassis and body that really has no value," Scott says.

In an unprecedented move, NASCAR has offered drivers some advice on where the cars and drivers might go: Somewhere else.

One of the suggestions is the growing SRL Super Late Model series on the West Coast.

NASCAR's announcement in December was no surprise to ASA owner Dennis Huth, who is working with the SRL to offer Elite division competitors an option for 2007.

"We had heard rumors about the possibility that NASCAR may drop the Elite Division a few months earlier and were already considering ways to fill the void if it happened," Huth says. "It happened much quicker than we anticipated."

The American Speed Association quickly launched plans to help expand the California-based SLR Super Late Model series next year to pick up the pieces of NASCAR's Northwest and Southwest tours.

Huth apprenticed at NASCAR. He ran tracks in the Pacific Northwest and created what was then called the NASCAR Northwest Tour in 1985. Later, he was the first director of NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series.

He bought the ASA's regional touring series and its member track program after the ASA fell upon hard times in 2004.