[mitchntx]

After watching a some of the coverage of the Daytona 500 this weekend and hearing a lot of discussion about the costs associated with feilding a competitive team and hearing the gnashing of teeth surrounding the dwindling sponsorships and hearing the concerns about enough cars to field a full grid and seeing Waltrip's wild tumble and seeing that tumble re-played on network after network after network ....

I began to wonder ....

Because it's all about the number of minutes a specific sponsor get's it's name on TV, when will a driver, who is an "also ran", purposely wreck his car, just get gleen a few extra minutes of sponsor coverage?

Is it cost effective to spend a $100,000 race car in order to keep a $10 million sponsor?

NAPA received tons of exposure from networks to local TV stations replaying his wreck. I would hate to see that happen on purpose, but ... it has to be there in someone's mind ...

[sgarnett]

I don't buy wrecking for exposure. It may help Nascar, but it doesn't help the team.

The hidden costs are a lot higher than $100K. Every car is a little different (it's simply not possible to build an exact clone), testing opportunites are VERY limited and expensive, and throwing away a sorted-out car hurts the teams chances at the NEXT race (or more).

OTOH, I have seen a driver force a caution when they needed one (and not just in NASCAR), and it certainly isn't unheard of to wreck your car to guard a teammate that's winning.

The scariest incident I've seen was actually in a motorcycle race on a road course. Rider A layed his bike down. Rider B, had to go offroad to avoid hitting Rider A, and damaged his bike. The inevitable caution would not have been enough to help him.

SO, Rider B ran onto the course and layed down near Rider A's wreck, blocking most of the track and forcing the race to be red flagged. By stopping the race he gained the opportunity to get his bike repaired in time for the restart.

I never heard what came of it, but I hope he was kicked out of the series.