[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 ...

[Rob Hood]

Field is now up to 45 entries as of my posting. http://jayski.thatsracin.com/

I don't know Ms. Spencer's sports or literary background, but I am not too keen on "outside" publications discussing auto racing, regardless of which type. I',m pretty sure that the Sporting News does publish some auto-related publications, but again, I don't think they qualify to write on the subject as well as say, Chris Economaki's NSSN or some of the racing monthlies. I could be wrong and won't mind that.

However, I don't believe that one of Brian France's goals is cost containment. If that were so, then NASCAR would only have ONE set of body templates. There would be only ONE body style permitted, not one body style per type of track. There is an incredible amount of money being dumped into superspeedway bodies, intermediate bodies, and short track bodies, all for the right amount of downforce for the specific track. Having to maintain multiple cars just to have the right one for the right track is not cost-effective. NASCAR should only allow one car to be used. Build as many of that one car, but that body, engine/trans/rear/suspension should be the same (minus the typical adjustments and changes allowed) whether they race at Talladega, Bristol, or Watkins Glen. And the cars should not be of a "common template," either. Make the teams use a production or production-based body (the old factory backdoor "body in white") and build the car around that.