It’s become a rich man’s sport.
I am old, but I remember when people showed up in a Stock Car carried on a trailer behind his family car and qualified.
Today its a special car built for racing Tractor trailers filled with parts and mechanics, big teams own all of them and a man cannot get into the game without being a quadruple millionaire.
Remember the Kenny Rogers movie “Six Pack”?
Makes me like the "little guys" even more. I am enjoying watching the success of Furniture Row racing team campaign a single car, even if it means tolerating to even rooting for Kurt Bush occasionally. I'm not a Bush fan, but I definitely respect the deep talent that runs in that family.
I also respect a good comeback and he and Furniture Row have been worthy competitors against the biggest and best this season.
But you are right about how much it costs to be there and be competitive. A little guy needs BIG bucks to race in NASCAR. Fortunately, they all sell their old cars to people like us and we can race their old stuff just like the old days on local tracks like the one a few miles from me.
“It’s become a rich man’s sport.”
Well, to be fair auto racing has always been a rich man’s sport. “Speed costs money; how fast do you want to go?”
As far as the have-nots in the sport go, I remember hearing that Wendell Scott would flat-tow his car to the track, pull the motor from his tow vehicle and drop it into the car, run the event, swap the motor back into the tow vehicle and go home. You can’t even THINK of doing that in today’s NASCAR.
I started drag racing in 1963 & even then the saying was “if you want to become a millionaire in racing start with a billion” or something like that. It has never & will never change. It costs big bucks to race.