THE STATE OF RACING: NASCAR, tracks decelerate
Economy hits attendance, sponsorships
“I was hoping to quit Cup racing at the end of last year,” he said. “But the way things are now, and trying to help the Woods, I don’t have a great deal of choices at this point in time.”
Elliott predicts the tough times off the track will negatively impact the competition on race day. The strong teams will get stronger and the weak ones will lose ground.
“There’s such a wide gap between the haves and the have-nots,” he said. “It’s going to be like ARCA racing.”
Lately, most ARCA races are dominated by drivers and teams with support from Cup teams, while the rest struggle to make it from one race to the next.
But Elliott also wonders whether the strong teams might be more vulnerable than they appear. He points out that Rick Hendrick, whose Hendrick Motorsports team is among NASCAR’s strongest, generates a big portion of his income through the automobile business, whose problems have been well documented.
“The car business has to be squeezing Hendrick pretty hard,” he said.
Toward the end of the recently completed season, there were many in the sport who questioned whether NASCAR’s top leaders, including chairman Brian France, were as concerned as they should be about the impact of the economy.
Yeah, nobody showed up for Sunday's race!
Sorry.