NASCAR on TV this week

Did You Notice? Lesa Takes The Helm, NASCAR’s Expensive Engines & No Guts, No Glory

Did You Notice? That not only are the number of car owners shrinking in the NASCAR Cup Series today, but so are the number of engine suppliers? Through seven races, the top-38 teams in the Cup Series standings get their motors from just seven shops. Here’s a quick breakdown of how it all works out:

Earnhardt-Childress – 9 Teams^
Roush/Yates – 7 Teams
Hendrick – 6 Teams
Toyota Racing Development – 6 Teams
Richard Petty Motorsports – 4 Teams
Joe Gibbs Racing – 3 Teams
Penske Racing – 3 Teams

^ – Front Row Motorsports (No. 34 – John Andretti) uses a combination of Earnhardt/Childress and Pro Motors.

As you might expect, this consolidation of power in shops across the NASCAR community has become a major roadblock for others looking to break into the sport. More than one new car owner has told me the biggest expense in looking to establish themselves on the circuit is being able to afford an engine contract with a competitive team.

If you’re an unsponsored car you have two options these days: run with a lower-tier engine program and hope to come close to breaking even on the purse, or dig yourself a deep financial hole with an expensive engine contract with a top team – in hopes that extra horsepower will make you run fast enough to attract a high-end sponsor.

So far this season, it looks like neither one of these strategies are working out as planned. TRG Motorsports is the best of the underdog operations these days, using the power of Earnhardt-Childress engines to their advantage. However, they’ve not been able to secure a primary sponsor to give them a sense of security moving forward through 2009. And for some of the other programs – Tommy Baldwin Racing and Mayfield Motorsports come to mind – they’ve chosen to avoid the expensive cost of those high-end contracts. Unfortunately, that’s come with a spurt of DNQs that have left them well outside the Top 35 moving forward.

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With common chassis, it’s the horsepower under the hood that remains the major innovation that can separate the contenders from the pretenders. So, while the common chassis may have done some good in making cars cheaper to purchase, parity could remain a simple illusion until the smaller teams have the ability to come in, build their own engine program, and compete with the big boys. Right now, that’s just too expensive, and so the “new blood” stays away or runs itself out of business before they even get their feet on solid ground.

Did You Notice? With Jim France stepping down as CEO of International Speedway Corporation, the future of the company is now officially in the hands of the next generation of Frances. Continuing the tradition since the company was incorporated in 1953 (then known as Bill France Racing Inc.) Lesa France Kennedy will take the helm as CEO effective June 1st.

At deadline this news is still breaking, so I’m still processing what this change will mean for the future of the sport – which means I don’t have ridiculously groundbreaking analysis here. But know this much, this move is big for the sport’s future. You’ve got to understand that ISC – which controls roughly half of the nearly two dozen tracks the Cup Series races on each year – has only had three CEOs throughout its 50-plus year existence: Bill France Sr., Bill France Jr. and Jim France.

With that type of stability, any change at the top is significant; and with Jim once thought to replace Brian France as CEO of the sport, his basic “retirement” now makes that a virtual impossibility. For better or for worse, it’s Brian and Lesa steering the mother ship of stock car racing for the foreseeable future.

Did You Notice? The highest-placed Nationwide-only driver has the potential to be someone the series could finally market itself around over the long-term? After a few inconsistent seasons behind the Braun Racing Toyota, Jason Leffler sits an impressive fourth in points six races into the season, just 196 points behind the Carl EdwardsKyle Busch championship battle up front. Leffler hasn’t won a race yet, but he’s with one of the few Nationwide-only outfits that have the resources to do so, especially when we come to standalone races later in the season like Gateway and IRP.

The reason I mention Leffler is that in terms of future marketing for the series, aging veterans like David Green, Jason Keller and Kenny Wallace will struggle to ever be championship contenders again. But in Leffler, you have a guy with a unique personality that’s also tried and failed at the Cup level twice. The Nationwide Series is where he’s consistently had the greatest amount of success, and one in which he can spend the next five, six, seven years and have a very successful career.

That puts him in a different league than guys like Brad Keselowski and Justin Allgaier, both of whom the series will be lucky to even have next year as both their age and early season performances have left them in position to scoop up vacant Cup rides.

That’s why seeing a guy like Leffler succeed would ultimately be good for a series desperate to redefine itself. If he could just inch his way into the championship battle, it will give the series a little more of a leg to stand on and a different personality it can market. One that won’t disappear in a few years to run a Cup race the following day.

Did You Notice? The notable furor surrounding Joe Nemechek not being allowed to finish the race after flipping over onto his roof? I’m not going to speak too much on the topic – it’s discussed at length in our Mirror Driving feature – but I think the incident itself speaks volumes about the way the three touring series are handled today.

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Fan's View: Classy Joe Nemechek Proves Winning Isn't Everything

To put it bluntly, Nemechek showed guts, passion and aggression in wanting to finish that race. Back in 1997, Dale Earnhardt had a much more serious flip at Daytona and was allowed to end up finishing the event. But 12 years later, NASCAR refused to do such a thing under the context of “playing it safe.” And so, the emotion was placed with rules and regulations, keeping Nemechek on the sidelines while the rest of the race played out to a peaceful conclusion.

Again, I’m not saying safety shouldn’t be a top priority, but people don’t fill the stands to see drivers play it safe. People don’t fill the stands to see drivers that are run-of-the-mill. If they wanted to do that, well, I know a hill nearby where people can watch drivers go single file down a local highway in Pennsylvania. I’ll sell some tickets and they can watch that.

No, I’m not being callous; my biggest fear is to work a race where a driver winds up dying. But in the end, “safety” is an illusion, isn’t it? Every time drivers strap into a car and go 200 mph into the turn, they’re taking their life into their hands because the sport is inherently dangerous. No amount of rules and regulations will ever change that fact; and at some point, we just need to sit back, take a deep breath and let go.

Tom Bowles
Majority Owner and Editor in Chief at Frontstretch

The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 40+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.

You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.