Tuesday's announcement that the No. 40 Dodge from Chip Ganassi Racing had suspended operations cast a somewhat chilly shadow on the traditional "halfway" race this weekend at Daytona International Speedway.
The team, run by businessmen with a combined five decades in motorsports, was closed due to "a lack of sponsorship funding" and caused 70 employees to be laid off. Dario Franchitti, a year removed from winning motorsports' most famous race, the Indianapolis 500, is left sorting out his prospects for the remainder of the season.
Those include a more-or-less full-time assignment in the Nationwide Series driving the team's Fastenal-sponsored Dodge, a possible return to the IndyCar Series for selected races or other options.
The removal of the No. 40 from the weekly car count is somewhat scary for NASCAR as well, because the car counts have gone from the high 40s to the low 40s between last season and now. Just 45 cars showed up for the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend.
"This is a difficult decision for Felix [Sabatas] and I that did not come without its share of anguish," Ganassi said. "In this tough business environment continuing to run the car without proper funding has become increasingly difficult."
That qualifies for "understatement of the year" so far in NASCAR's top series.
Consider that over the past several weeks we've seen movement of entrenched sponsors like General Mills (Cheerios/Betty Crocker) from Petty Enterprises to Richard Childress Racing and Caterpillar from Bill Davis Racing to Richard Childress Racing.
Also, Office De lost rising superstar Carl Edwards to Aflac in what was reported as a straight money deal with Roush Fenway Racing. That means that Aflac was willing to pony up more than Office De.
The U.S. Army is purportedly shopping its sponsorship for 2009. The Army works on one-year contracts and its current deal with Dale Earnhardt Inc. expires at the end of the season.
Tuesday's announcement that Aric Almirola will be the full-time driver of DEI's No. 8 Chevrolet next season did not include mention of the Army sponsorship, although that is not yet settled.
Penske Racing is facing an uncertain future for the No. 12 car after primary sponsor Alltel was purchased by Verizon Wireless earlier this summer. Verizon, according to reports, plans to do away with the Alltel brand, and given NASCAR's Sprint sponsorship, Verizon will not be allowed to enter the sponsorship arena with the series.
Time up for Dario
Citing a lack of sponsorship dollars, Chip Ganassi Racing shut down operation of the No. 40 Cup team, officially ending Franchitti's rookie season.
In other words, there's a whole lot of uncertainty for the remainder of 2008, let alone 2009, in NASCAR's premier division.
OK, now the question remains, why?
The economy is the first and most logical contributory factor. Primary sponsorship for a top-flight driver and team is reaching the mid-$20 million range. Rumored asking price for the No. 99 Ford with Edwards was between $24 million and $26 million, depending upon who was asked.
That's a lot of cheddar for one car and one driver, and it's more than some companies are willing to spend. Office De has had some corporate struggles with its stock price lately, and it's hardly alone in that regard among the top-tier NASCAR sponsors.
Faced with write-downs and store closings and layoffs, some companies will look at marketing first and foremost for places to cut budget, although that trend has softened lately because if you can't market your products, you're not likely to sell much more.
Another contributing factor is the preponderance of multi-car teams. The reason for multi-car teams is the same as it ever was: more data, more platforms and more combined competition "fixes."
But the unintended effect of so many three- and four-car teams is they soak up the majority of the sponsorship "bandwidth" available to the pool as a whole. Richard Childress Racing, based on its traditional upside, has replaced a sponsor for its No. 31 Chevy and added funding for a fourth car with sponsors that had been committed to other teams.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. The competitive arena is, well, competitive, and the companies involved saw a chance to go to a higher-profile marketing platform.
That means the teams that lost those sponsors have to go out and find new ones, and the beat goes on.
In the weeks to come, more of the 2008-2009 NASCAR sponsorship story will begin to take shape, and you can expect some consolidation and shuffling as new teams (such as the ential Haas CNC-Tony Stewart Racing deal) come in and existing teams adapt to the changing tide of monies coming in or going out.
One thing you might want to watch for is the demise of "knockout" qualifying. There might not be enough cars entered in some of the remaining races to continue the practice.