Economy cars

Smallest field in Daytona history could spell trouble

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Ticker) -- The Daytona 500 is NASCAR's biggest race, but economic woes and the high cost of racing have resulted in one of the smallest number of entries ever.

There are 45 cars entered for the 43-car field for this year's race. Andy Belmont was the only driver who failed to make the field for Saturday's ARCA race and will enter the same car in the Daytona 500.

Daytona International Speedway officials could not verify if this year's entry list is the smallest ever because records are incomplete. The first Daytona 500 was held in 1959 but records were not complete until the 1970s.

The high cost of NASCAR, however, has put many teams out of business and even before its biggest event of the year, there will be little drama as to who goes home.

Tommy Baldwin is the general manager at Ray Evernham Motorsports and has one car without a sponsor for Bill Elliott. He believes it is so hard and expensive to find sponsors and to keep them.

"The competition in the upper levels is a lot higher," Baldwin said. "It's scarce down at the bottom but hopefully some of those teams will get sponsors. It started getting like this at the end of the year when three or four teams lost their sponsors. Look at Jeff Burton's car and the No. 1 car at DEI they still don't have sponsors. That makes us all nervous."

Baldwin remembers the days when drivers from the Northeast and Midwest would bring a car in an attempt to make the Daytona 500. There would be 70-75 cars trying to make the race, which made it the premier and most anticipated stock car race of the year.

But the sport is so expensive, even some of the top teams have had to scale back.

"This is really one of the most expensive races now because of the length of time you have to put to make the race," Baldwin said. "It's difficult. Times are hard. We are one of the most watched sports in the country and a lot of people can touch the sponsor and use the products. I would think we'd be better off than we are right now."

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Baldwin sees hope that with more Busch teams this year, sponsors will be able to get a taste of NASCAR with an opportunity to move up to the Cup series. Meantime, there may be short fields at Rockingham and some of the other tracks on the schedule.

"We'll see what the car count is when we get to Rockingham, but I think Las Vegas will be a full field," said Baldwin, referring to races in the upcoming weeks.

Team owner Jack Roush is one of those looking for a sponsor for Jeff Burton's Ford. With one of the better drivers in racing, it's hard to imagine the team is entering the season without a sponsor. At Daytona, Burton's car is sponsored by The NBA All-Star Game on TNT.

"I don't think it's bad to have a bunch of sponsors and teams not be frustrated by not making the show," Roush said. "Sending people home in my opinion is not good for sponsors and not something that I relish."

Roush is hoping successful Busch teams can convince sponsors into moving up to the next step in Nextel Cup.

"There will be Busch programs that can step up to Cup," Roush said. "The economy has made it hard to generate the money and all the research has made it more sophisticated. Forty-three cars to me is a good number, but 33 would be good, too."

The problem got worse when BACE Motorsports announced Friday morning that Tony Raines and the No. 74 Nextel Cup team will not run in Sunday's Daytona 500.

Citing lack of sponsorship, owner Bill Baumgardner determined that it would not be in the best interest of the organization to run the entire Nextel Cup schedule in 2004.

"After the investment we made in 2003, we don't have anything to prove by going out there and running a second full season out of pocket," Baumgardner said.

In 35 Winston Cup starts as a rookie, Raines posted 15 Top-25 finishes, including a string of four consecutive top-20s down the stretch, highlighted by a sixth-place finish at Rockingham and 13th-place run in the season finale in Miami.

"Sure it's disappointing not to be running the full schedule, especially after the momentum we built at the end of last year," Raines said. "But you can't be ruled by emotion, or you'll find yourself out of this sport in a hurry."

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