It's the money stupid! Dope! What was I thinking? It's always show me the money!
Last year in California last place paid $80,000. Why? Should we really pay this for last place? No wonder some teams were trying to make a living as field fillers then parking a car only fit for qualifying after one lap. What was the point in that?
Thankfully, with the entry of Toyota this is not happening this year. But there is still something rotten in Denmark. Busch fields are short of entries. Why aren't these extra Cup teams running Busch?
Chorus:
It's the money stupid! Dope! What was I thinking? It's always show me the money!
Busch paid roughly $24,000 to start.
Cost to send trailer from North Carolina to California...$10,000
Cost to send four people with team...$5,000
Tire bill...$3,000
Not exactly priceless.
O.K. So why not run trucks?
Chorus:
It's the money stupid! Dope! What was I thinking? It's always show me the money!
How much did Mike Skinner win last Friday by winning the truck race?
$60,000.
$20,000 less than it pays just to make the Cup race?
Yep.
Which brings me to this. What should NASCAR do to rectify this situation?
How about revenue sharing? Pay less to start in Cup? Pay less to start in Cup and use money to pay more to start in Busch? Pay less to start in Cup and use money to pay more to win in trucks?
Hey Falcons, did you add aa comment to my top-35 post? It seems to have vanished completely.
On-topic, if only tangentially, I dig that you added a "Denmark"-tag to your post.
EDIT: It's there, now. Didn't you just make a post about how the Buschwackers were killing the series? Is this an argument for why there should be MORE Cup guys racing Busch and Trucks?
The obvious solution here is to make a Triple Crown out of the three series, with a huge prize at the end for a team that can run the table or have the best overall performance in the three series. Another option would be to redistribute the series money in a way that the Cup racers get an financial incentive to run Busch and Trucks. Money talks.
Of course, this is just a natural cycle of things and by this time two years form now I totally expect this to correct itself. For example, why in the HELL is A.J. Allmendinger not running a full Busch schedule this year? Since Tony Stewart jumped straight from the IRL to the Cup Series it seems like there are too many guys skipping the step that Junior, Gordon, JJ, Kenseth, and virtually every other driver had to take. A couple of these current teams will scale back their operations accordingly if they aren't making any Cup races, I think.
Last edited by JayJayDean on March 3rd at 8:08 AM.
I am arguing for NASCAR to strike the balance that will result in a full Cup field while encouraging lesser teams to try to tun Busch races competitively instead of just qualifying for Cup and parking a car lest we happen to get back to that. I would hope appropriate qualifying and winning pots would also result in a trickle down affect helping the truck series.
I don't think most fans would be interested in the Triple Crown idea.
A.J. had a previous relationship with Red Bull in CART I believe and I think they picked him. He came out of nowhere to win two or three straight CART races last year. He was a team mate to Paul Tracy and was beating him with comparable equipment so he is a very talented driver and will probably eventually succeed driving any kind of car he wants to.
It is amazing that a last place driver can earn so much money.I would imagine many of the smaller teams or drivers use this as a cash cow. Build the car able to qualify and run a few laps then park it.I have noticed two or three of the same drivers do this every week. NASCAR has to be on to this and should straighten them out.
I have always stated that NASCAR needs to drop prize money entirely for the last 7 or 8 spots and put more money on the front runners. that might add more drama to the races and stop some of this weekly repeat drivers running a couple laps and then parking the car.
I certainly believe they need to lower the guarantee near the bottom. The least they should pay should only cover expenses in my mind not be profitable. Pass the cash on down to Busch to strengthen it for the good of the sport much like major league teams do with minor leagues in baseball.
photgr- nascar has done something about the field fillers, namely allowing Toyota in the series has added enough competitors. It shows with the fact that some high to mid dollar efforts have missed races. (ward burton, jeremy mayfield, micheal waltrip and red bull)
also i noticed that atleast one former cup field filler has dropped to busch (stanton barrett was at mexico this weekend)
i think the triple crown idea would be good, although i am for the teams using different drivers, and only allowing cup guys in the busch field for a limited number of races.
i thought that busch and truck were supposed to be stepping stones to the big show, not the extra practice that they have become.
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