Spiraling costs changing the face of ownership

	Despite all of Jack Roush's success, the skyrocketing costs of running a team has him on the verge of a new partnership. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

Through four days of new conferences official and in darkened corners during the Lowe's Speedway media tour, the one theme that clearly emerged is the fact that NASCAR has gone global without leaving its own backyard.

It's more than just Toyota debuting in the Nextel Cup series as the first foreign nameplate. The price of competitive racing has risen so high that the old fashioned individual owners who ran teams as their primary business are becoming the dinosaurs of the sport.

Simply, the finances needed to run a top flight organization are changing the faces of ownership.

In the early days the driver owned a car and his pit crew was comprised of his buddies. Although there were multi-car teams in the early days, it took a giant, like Junior Johnson, to make a two-car team -- with factory support -- the way to go.

As the sport evolved, so, too, did the teams. Automotive entrepreneur Rick Hendrick took it a step further when he bumped it up to three cars. Now he has four. Jack Roush notched that number up to five.

The die was cast; two-car teams weren't enough to stay competitive on the track, or, in the race, to get multimillion dollar sponsorships.

Today even men dedicated to ownership alone, such as Childress and Roush, don't have deep enough pockets to go it alone. The worst-kept secret in the garages is that Roush will be selling part of his business to the John Henry's Fenway Sports Group, better known as the owner of the Boston Red Sox. Childress, the car owner of the late Dale Earnhardt, previously sold part of his business to an investment group.

While the $20 million budgets each car carries each year may seem exorbitant (and it is), consider Formula One budgets, in which big teams spend $500 million a year. Yes, half-a-billion dollars for just two cars.

Once upon a time Formula One team owners were sportsman or businessman whose side businesses were taking their sleek single-seaters to glamorous settings around the world. And there were the odd sports car companies, like Lotus and Ferrari, racing as a company or through their associates.