Influx of new owners coming to NASCAR; NASCAR's going green

Tommy Baldwin is one of the new owners jumping into NASCAR this season. Getty Images

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Squeezed out by the emergence of multi-car teams when business was booming, single-car, independent teams are going to save NASCAR's starting lineups in the Sprint Cup Series during the economic downturn.

Call them "Start and Parks" or "Field Fillers," but it is undeniable that teams that didn't exist a month ago are taking advantage of an opportunity created by the stunning drop in car count by the bigger teams.

NASCAR officials confirm that 15 new car owners have requested chassis certification for the upcoming season. Some are current Rolex Grand American teams, such as TRG (The Racers Group), that view this as an opportunity to expand their operation. Others are like former Cup driver Phil Parsons, currently an analyst for Speed TV, who sees this as a chance to field a team. Former Daytona 500 winning crew chief Tommy Baldwin is also preparing a Cup team for the upcoming season.

Leave it to NASCAR to take a weak economy and turn it into an ownership bonanza.

"This is a business model that we are looking at to figure out how to make adjustments around and to keep going," NASCAR president Mike Helton said of the influx of new owners into the sport. "What that gives us now is hope that there are people out there anticipating the ability to participate in the Sprint Cup Series. Now we will have to see how that unfolds."

The independent teams are part of the charm of NASCAR's past. Richard Childress was a young, struggling independent driver who competed against the big teams in the '60s and '70s. He hung around long enough to get his big break in the '80s, when Dale Earnhardt joined his team. They formed one of the greatest combinations in the sport's history, and Childress would go on to become one of the major team owners in the sport. This year, Childress is rolling out a four-car operation that consists of former Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick, savvy veteran Jeff Burton, young star Clint Bowyer and Casey Mears.

Other independents of the past included Dave Marcis, Jimmy Means, Trevor Boys, J.D. McDuffie and James Hylton. And while these drivers rarely finished in the top half of the field, they formed the backbone of the sport.

"That is where our character comes from," Helton said. "That is what built the character of NASCAR. And if we go through another cycle like that, we will see characters come out, and the ones that make it will make that new level of character."

NASCAR believes its new car model has allowed those opportunities because new teams don't have to have all the aerodynamic tricks the previous model needed. "We didn't have a crystal ball that said this was going to happen, but sometimes dumb luck is better than being smart," Helton said. "This new chassis in Sprint Cup has been a benefit to the times....

"If they meet all the expectations and criteria of a car owner and make the show, that is what we look at," Helton said. "Robby Gordon struggled in 2007 but came back strong in 2008. Our job is to make sure everybody gets treated the same, and when a car starts the race it has met all of those expectations."

Some of these low budget teams might start the race, compete in the early stages, then park the car, collect the prize money and go home. And while Start and Parks is a term that NASCAR officials may not like, the involvement of these teams has become necessary.

A 24-Hour Trophy Dash

NASCAR takes over the Rolex Grand American Series and the result is a finish for the ages. Imagine that.

This year's Rolex 24 at Daytona was a 24-hour trophy dash with the race-winning passing coming in the final 40 minutes. That allowed David Donohue to win the event 40 years after his father, Mark, won the famed sports car endurance race.

Donohue's Porsche held off the strong challenge of Juan Pablo Montoya's Lexus over the duration of the race as the top four cars in the Prototype division were in a virtual NASCAR nose-to-tail battle to the checkered flag. It is amazing to think that after 24 hours of racing there would be a finish this dramatic. One of the reasons was the unusually high number of full course caution periods, which bunched the field on restarts.