Widespread job cuts exected in NASCAR

ShareThis

The moves by big NASCAR team owners Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs in the past few days to start paring their giant rosters of crewmen set off a wave of frantic job searching by a large number of crewmen over the weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.The fear is that next week, after the Homestead finale to the 10-month season, even more NASCAR job cuts will be made.That, plus glum economics news from Detroit's carmakers in the past few days, brought an appearance from NASCAR CEO Brian France, who said he has made rounds to the very top corporate officers of Ford, General Motors, Toyota and Chrysler and has been reassured that NASCAR is very important in their marketing plans."We have been told directly, by each of these companies, that one of the things that works best for them is NASCAR," France said. "Each went out of his way to make the point that, despite having to make cuts to meet these challenging times, they will not abandon something that works so well."That was very comforting to us. That's one of the reasons we went up to Detroit and out to Los Angeles -- to make sure we are still working well for them, in helping them sell their vehicles, in helping them sell their brand."We have been aggressive in opening up the sport, even when criticized for bringing in foreign manufacturers. Because the manufacturing component is very, very important to this sport. And we'll continue working with our partners while they are facing such challenging times."But we're not going to live or die if one manufacturer has to pull back or pull out. The sport is on very, very solid ground, that transcends one manufacturer or another."As we've said for at least a year now, that if the economy got worse, NASCAR would not be immune to the effects of a tough economy. And we said we would have to work with our partners, if they were struggling, to ensure that we're good partners as they face challenging times."And that also includes our fans, who have had to fight rising fuel prices over the summer, which had an effect on us, and who have been having to fight the credit crunch that has been thrown at them."So NASCAR, as an industry, is not immune.''With his appearance, France wanted to address the sudden question of whether NASCAR is providing enough leadership in this new crisis. France's father, the late Bill Jr., was a standard Sunday fixture in the NASCAR garage every race weekend, available to take questions from anyone. However, Brian France has been only seldom seen at the track.Does Brian France himself need to become more available now?"I know that question is on everyone's mind, so let me address that head on," France said. "We like the way we're structured -- we have the president of our company at every event. And he has the total confidence of me and the entire France family and the board."I don't know of any other sport that does that."I'm at 12 to 14 events (of the 36). But most of the business elements of NASCAR occur during the week. That's when we're meeting with our team owners and all our partners, setting policy for the sport."On the weekends we're celebrating the events."And most of you have said you'd rather hear less from me and more from the team owners and drivers. I agree. That's why we said 'Back to the basics,' back to focusing on the action on the track."Now we've got a different economic climate ... but our structure, and how we manage the company, is deep with people. Running the events is one thing; running the sport and its policies is another -- to make sure we interact with all our partners."And this is not the first tough economic situation we've had to face. We've been around for 60 years. We went through the energy crisis in the 1970s ... we went through 9-11 and the fallout from that.... We've seen bubbles before."This is a very big economic downturn -- but we're not going to change our business model."We will be more aggressive in taking out costs ... and we've been talking with team owners who are looking at mergers, though we don't publicize that. Mike and I are meeting with them constantly. We understand the teams that face the toughest challenges, and we try to find them partners and sponsors, try to facilitate that. We just don't put that in bright lights."But much is out of our control. The teams that are performing well aren't facing sponsorship challenges; teams that perform at a lower level, even when times are good, even though you might like them to be sponsored, they aren't performing well."It is a giant balancing act in this sport, and we're after the perfect balancing act.... But a lot is out of our control."France said that NASCAR is stepping up efforts to try to cut the costs of running a team. "The cost model we have, with the rules packages, that we have control over, we need to be more aggressive than we've ever been in taking costs out of the system."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)