Will a sluggish U.S. economy doom NASCAR’s promising crop of newcomers? What’s next for Regan Smith?
Regan Smith (right), with Mark Martin (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
By Mike Mulhern
Times are tough for NASCAR teams, all the way around, owners and drivers and crewmen and sponsors, and those new to the Sprint Cup tour, like Regan Smith, one of this season’s most promising rookies, have it rougher than usual. No matter how talented they are, no matter how fast they’re learning, it may not be fast enough to keep sponsors happy.
It’s a corollary to the rich-get-richer theory: if you don’t have a big name or a couple of splashy races to boast about, you might be about to fall through the cracks and vanish. Look at car owner Rick Hendrick, for example – he just hired Mark Martin, a legend but soon to turn 50, instead of a young-and-upcoming development driver, as well he could afford, since he’s got title contenders Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. already on his roster.
Over the 14 years or so since NASCAR racing really hit mainstream America, one of the good things about that marketing success was that it opened doors for a lot of new drivers, including men like Tony Stewart, who once – hard as it may be to recall – was iffy in this branch of the sport.
Regan Smith (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
Lately it’s included men young and promising, like Smith this season, as well as veterans from other series, like Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti and Patrick Carpentier—with NASCAR team owners able and willing, even eager, to put them in top-flight equipment. And sponsors not that hard to sell on the game plan.
Now though there is increasing worry that dynamic may be about to change, because of the unsettled economy and uncertain corporate sponsors.
Sponsors don’t have the luxury, in this economic climate, to take many marketing chances. They want to go with what’s proven. And even that – if the now questionable Joe Gibbs-Home Depot sponsorship, for example, is suddenly as fragile as it appears, even after so many championship seasons and weekly, even daily headlines —may not be a given.
Juan Pablo Montoya should be the benchmark for NASCAR’s international marketing. But could he land a NASCAR ride in today’s economic climate? (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
If a World Champion like Jacques Villeneuve can’t land a NASCAR sponsor, there’s something wrong (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Franchitti, despite his stellar Indy-car credentials, wasn’t attractive enough to potential sponsors, so car owner Chip Ganassi had to shut down that team, laying off 71 people.
Even racing giant General Motors is moving its NASCAR money to more tightly focus on what provides the best return-on-investment. That means dropping track-owner programs like pace cars and putting that money to better work at, say, bankrolling Tony Stewart’s new venture.
If guys like Regan Smith get lost in the shuffle, that’s bad. Smith is a good kid who has been doing his best to learn the trade….not an easy trade even in the best of times.
And, though up against more high-profile racers in the battle for NASCAR rookie-of-the-year, Smith is atop those standings at the season’s midpoint, with an eighth at Daytona two weeks ago, following a series-best fourth at Pocono. And Smith is still thinking he might well have finished better at Daytona, but for that confusion-marred wreck-fest finish.
Smith is just 24, but he’s been in NASCAR since his first Truck run six years ago. And he narrowly escaped last season’s Bobby Ginn disaster, when that car owner failed and shuffled his remaining assets, including Smith, over to DEI.
Now with rumors swirling around Dale Earnhardt Inc. and all its drivers, with Mark Martin leaving, with Martin Truex Jr. trying to leave, with Paul Menard future still up in the air, and with all the other driver moves in the garage, Smith realizes he is just a pawn in the game.
Smith’s fate: Uncertain.
Crew chief Doug Richert and Regan Smith (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
“I don’t know what it will or won’t unleash,” Smith says of the current garage shuffle, highlighted by Tony Stewart’s split from car owner Joe Gibbs. “I would tend to think it’s going to unleash quite a bit of stuff. But this time of year this always happens. It seems right at about Chicago every year is when all this stuff starts getting announced and pieces to the puzzle start falling into place. “
What it all might mean for Smith is uncertain. Still, he’s running better, qualifying better, and leading the rookie standings.
“We’re not happy, still,” Smith insists. “Until we’re finishing top-10 each week we don’t feel we’re doing what we want to be doing.
“But we’re making gains on it…and that’s all part of being a rookie.”
(This weekend Smith and Ryan Newman will be co-sponsoring a two-day workshop at Lowe’s Motor Speedway for the American Humane Association, for people interested in learning how to deal with the welfare of animals in the wake of a disaster – particularly disaster response professionals like EMS personnel, firefighters, animal shelter staff, animal control officers, veterinarians, and trainers.)
Indy star Dario Franchitti is suddenly struggling to stay afloat in NASCAR (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
At least Smith still has a Cup ride for the moment, which is more than Franchitti, who isn’t taking his team’s shakeup very well: “It was such a big shock that it happened.
“I and 70 people lost their jobs…so a lot of people are upset right now.
“Everybody’s having challenges getting sponsorship right now. There are probably two or three teams looking good—and a lot of other teams struggling.
“I understand that if there’s no money there is no money. And the timing of these things are never good.
“Breaking my ankle (ironically in a Nationwide race, rather than in the Cup car) didn’t help either.
Ashley Judd, Dario Franchitti’s wife (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)
“I had so much luck last year in Indy-car that I really felt at times I couldn’t do any wrong. Luck has a way of balancing out.
“But it’s particularly frustrating because we really felt that we were getting hold of it. The team struggled at the start of the year, and I struggled learning the ropes. But since I came back from my broken ankle (Talladega, April) I really felt we were running as well if not better, compared to my teammates, at certainly Pocono, Michigan and Loudon.
“Obviously we didn’t qualify at Sonoma, but at those other three races I felt we made a lot of progress.
“But, in keeping with what’s happened this season, if it could go wrong it did go wrong.
“We’ve been taken out twice and blown an engine. But we’re running top-15 every week, some cases top-10…apart from Sonoma. So I really feel we’re getting there.
“It gives me hope that—given the right chances and the right equipment—we can do this.
“I hope we get that chance.”
Will Dario Franchitti get another NASCAR shot? Can he hang in here? (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
After all Franchitti gave up a very strong Indy-car career to make the leap to NASCAR.
Any second thoughts now?
“I was thinking about that the other day,” Franchitti says. “When I made the decision to leave Indy-car it was because I felt I had run my course. I didn’t feel I was going to have that—I don’t know the right word, ‘determination’ maybe, to get back in the car again this year.
“I really felt it was time to do something else.
“Had I not come to NASCAR I would have done something else.
“I loved my time in Indy-cars, and the championship, I really enjoyed it. Obviously last year was a great year…but it was time to do something different.”
Dario Franchitti and team owner Chip Ganassi (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images for NASCAR)
And now?
Well, Franchitti says everything is up to car owner Chip Ganassi.
“We’re starting to look around, starting to talk, but really nothing is going to happen until I speak to Chip and see what his plan is for the future… and see if it’s something I’m interested in,” Franchitti says. “Then I can make a decision.
“The phone’s been ringing—which has been nice—from all kinds of different places.
“But things are so up in the air you can’t make any decisions.
Dario Franchitti (left) and Marcos Ambrose are both promising NASCAR racers who are hanging on the brink of uncertainty right now (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
“It would be a shame to come over here and start that learning curve and really start to get the hang of it….
“It’d be a shame to quit now.
“I’ve won in every type of car I’ve ever driven. And I’ve put a lot of effort into coming over here and learning this new form of racing.”
Patrick Carpentier is hanging tough, despite the odds against him in NASCAR (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
And then there’s Patrick Carpentier, whose dogged determination this his rookie season has been striking. At 36, and on racing’s sidelines for a while, now making a return, in this decidedly different form of the sport, he’s under the gun to make it work quickly.
And maybe it’s not working that well, really, but the Canadian has been like a pit bull, refusing to let go.
“There are ups and downs: It’s very tough to switch from open-wheel,” Carpentier says.
“It’s been really good at times…and really bad at other times.”
Bill Elliott (left) certainly has a lot of wisdom and advice to pass on to Patrick Carpentier (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
At least Carpentier and team owners Ray Evernham and George Gillett Jr. have solid sponsorship.
However, not only is Carpentier having to learn a new form of racing, he’s also got to learn NASCAR’s new winged stocker, which few teams in the garage —even now, halfway through the season – have any handle on.
It’s like the blind leading the blind.
And for Carpentier each race is a major learning experience. “At Charlotte we struggled both weeks….now we think we know why—it was a geometry thing on the car that wasn’t right,” he says.
“At some races we’ve been really good. At Darlington we ran really well; we just had a mechanical issue.
“I think we’re going to be okay.”
Patrick Carpentier, NASCAR’s Montreal connection (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
As easy as Juan Pablo Montoya has made this all look – his jump from Formula One to NASCAR has been spectacular, and Joe Gibbs might well be able to make a strong run at the championship next season with Montoya if car owner Chip Ganassi doesn’t hang on to him.
Carpentier has been watching Montoya closely: “I knew it was hard. I watched Juan Pablo last year – and I raced against him (in Indy-cars) on ovals—and said ‘Whoa, man! This NASCAR thing is pretty hard.
“When you look at it on TV, they’re going 20 or 30 mph slower than we do in Indy-cars, and it doesn’t look that hard. You forget they have half the tire, more power, more weight, and no downforce….
“To do one lap quick, qualifying, we seem to have the hang of that. But to do quick laps for 100 laps on the same set of tires, that’s what it’s all about. That’s the hardest part to learn.
“People have no idea how hard it is in Cup.
Team owner Ray Evernham knows how difficult it is to make it in NASCAR as a driver (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
“Like Ray Evernham said: ‘It’s going to take time.’ He told me ‘I knew when we picked you up it was going to take a few years. It took (teammate) Kasey Kahne two or three years to get to victory lane, and Elliott Sadler (his other teammate) the same.’
“I just hope that, with the economy we have now, they have the patience to live through it with me.”
Two men on the NASCAR ladder: AJ Allmendinger (left) and Patrick Carpentier (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
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It gets pretty cramped in a NASCAR cockpit, for a Formula One guy like Jacques Villeneuve (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)