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Slowdown May Not Be All Bad for NASCAR
Alan Kulwicki won NASCAR's title in 1992 on a budget of less than $2 million.
(By John Bazemore -- Associated Press)
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"It was like a spaceship had landed in our shop!" McReynolds recalls.
Today, top NASCAR teams like Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing have at least a half-dozen CNC machines, each spitting out custom parts.
The late Dale Earnhardt won most of his seven NASCAR championships with even less sophisticated equipment.
"We had four scales, a ball of string and a tape measure, and that was all you needed," said Kirk Shelmerdine, crew chief for four of those seven titles, recalling the process of building and balancing Earnhardt's No. 3 Chevys. "And I had to re-use the string!"
Today, nearly everything about constructing Sprint Cup cars is computer-based. Race-day engines are tested on computers that simulate the banking and load of specific racetracks before they're ever put in a car.
And while NASCAR mandated in 2006 that all cars' bodies be identical (its so-called "Car of Tomorrow" ostensibly designed to reduce cost), the upshot has cost teams even more money. With so little variation among the cars, the well-funded teams are pouring millions into research and development to find the slightest edge.
And each time one hires an engineer with an MIT degree or Formula One experience, others scramble to do the same.
"NASCAR is a monkey-see, monkey-do business," former racer Kenny Wallace said. "There are millions of dollars wasted in this sport trying to gain an advantage on the other competitors. I've seen people spend $100,000 trying to design a jack to jack the car up faster during pit stops."
It's the nature of the beast in all sports. Without limits set by the NFL, spring minicamps would stretch into summer. Without limits imposed by the NCAA, college basketball coaches would recruit 12 months a year.
"We're a victim of our own success, there is no question," McReynolds says.
But with sponsorship money drying up, teams are cutting payrolls.
More than 100 jobs are expected to be lost at Dale Earnhardt Inc., which announced last week it was merging with Chip Ganassi Racing. Neither team had enough sponsors to bankroll its 2009 campaign, so they are joining forces and paring back.
