By: Rob D'Amico and Michele Rahal from Race Day on Fox Sports Radio

Go ahead and admit it. You love a good feud as much as the next guy or girl and surely as much as we do. Earnhardt vs. Busch, Carl Edwards vs. Busch or Robby Gordon vs. everybody. It’s in our nature as humans to slow down for the car wreck, fight or stretch our hearing just a little bit further for a good screaming match. Jerry Springer figured that one out a long time ago.

What we saw at the Camping World 400 at Dover, Delaware this past weekend wasn’t your traditional driver vs. driver feud. It was the best race of the year. Funny thing was, it was among the three Roush cars of Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. In fact, if Jamie McMurray hadn’t been taken out, chances are he would have been in the fray. The teammates tried everything known to man to best each other including switching lines, rubbing on each other and three-wide racing. In the end what was obvious is that the power plants were powerful and evenly matched.

But in the grand scheme of things the show Roush created was much more important. It was the first musket ball that found its mark. Who shot it? Jack Roush. Who caught the lead dead on? Toyota. Roush Fords finished in the first three spots while the Joe Gibbs cars blew up, came apart or couldn’t get out of their own way.

In Roush’s own words he stated last year that, "We're going to go to war with them, and they should give us their best shot because we'll be giving as good as we take," He added, "Toyota will bring changes in the way we conduct business. They have deep pockets … they'll try to put the rest of us in a catch-up scenario, and I'm trying to prepare for that. I expect to hand Toyota their head over the short term."  Indeed.

Roush has been on a two-pronged mission since 2004 when Toyota announced that they would enter the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and escalated that strategy in 2007 when Toyota stated it would enter the Nationwide, formerly Busch, and the Sprint Cup series. That mission involved a very public outcry that would have made Paul Revere’s famous ride, warning of the imminent British invasion, seem like the pitiful little pony that shows up at the rich kids birthday party.

The second part of this strategy is genius. If Roush could make enough noise and get the fan base to go along with it, then Ford might pony (no pun intended) up more technology, money or services in kind. He screamed often and loud and Ford wrote big checks. Why? It all stems from the deep pockets that Toyota does indeed possess. Although it’s a misnomer, the general perception is that everything Toyota enters they spend until they win. The truth is Toyota have been in Formula One for 6 years with a yearly budget upwards of $400 million and have never come close to winning.

Toyota struggled in the trucks and then began to win. They struggled in Sprint cup and Nationwide in 2007 and now, in 2008, they are winning in all three manufacturer series. Now comes the adjustment in the Roush strategy. Roush, Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge lobbied to hobble the horsepower that Toyota has found in the Truck series and the Nationwide Series. What’s up next? Is there any doubt that the next salvo fired will be at the Toyota Sprint Cup Series engines? Genius.

The other side of this Hatfield and McCoy story is that Toyota hasn’t taken the assault lying down. Lee White, once a friend and employee of Roush’s, is now the President of Toyota Racing Development, the racing arm in America for the Japanese manufacturer. Often Roush would accuse Toyota of cheating or down right espionage. When Carl Edwards was caught with an oil lid removed from the interior of his car, White stated, "I guarantee you the cover bolts didn't fall out, because if they fall, the engine leaks and you can't run," he said. "If you want something to fall off, you fix it so it can." The absence of the oil tank cover can allegedly give the car 240 more pounds of down-force.

Lord knows Lee White didn’t stop there. On the subject of NASCAR restricting the Toyota’s horsepower in the Nationwide series recently, White said that the ruling “could be more far-reaching than simply mandating Toyota adjust its Nationwide engine.” His words may be regarded as prophetic if Toyota catches it breath in early 2009. NASCAR could restrict the horsepower of the Toyota’s across the board. As it stands now Toyota has taken the big Chase hit with Busch, Hamlin and Stewart. That won’t stop Jack.

Dover was the proof that Roush’s strategy has worked, if only temporarily. The Ford’s even sounded different than the other marques. Toyota is now faced with stressing their power plants with the only thing they can, higher RPM’s and a smoother drive train. The drive train stress was evident this weekend with the mechanical failures suffered by the Joe Gibbs Racing, the default factory team for Toyota.

Make no mistake, this is a self-proclaimed war between Roush-Fenway and Toyota, but behind the scenes it goes further. The remaining manufacturers don’t mind if Roush is the mouthpiece, but concurrently they to are lobbying NASCAR to slow down the perceived juggernaut Toyota. That’s fine with them.

The biggest problem with this type of fight is that it looks great in the press, but it rarely comes to a resolution. Roush is gaining ground rapidly in the Chase and isn’t that the real end game? Jack Roush craftily got exactly what he wanted but the war goes on. It will be a very expensive war indeed.

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Race Day on Fox Sports Radio can be heard every Sunday Morning from 6-9am eastern time on 220 FOX Affiliates, XM Radio Channel 142 and streamed live 24/7 at FoxSports.com

Rob D'Amico and also be heard every Friday at 1pm eastern on SPEED Radio at SPEEDTV.com Keyword: Radio Get the show archives here

By: Rob D'Amico and Michele Rahal from Race Day on Fox Sports Radio

Michele Rahal's Side

The first round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship at Louden, New Hampshire is one in the books and a dark-horse takes the win, if you can call Greg Biffle a dark-horse. That’s what the Chase is supposed be and Sunday’s Sylvania 300 race didn’t disappoint, at least as it shook up the points. On the other hand, it was still a race where cars couldn’t turn, splitters hit the ground rendering the cars uncontrollable and passing was still a restart process rather than battling side by side on track racing. The common catchphrase by all the commentators has now become ‘track position’.

Aerodynamics are paramount on tracks like Lowes, Texas and Atlanta but the negative effects of it should not be as severe as it is on one mile tracks, no matter what the configuration. The mechanical grip should be the dominant force that controls whether a car can turn and actually pass in the corners.  If you have grip coming off the corner then you have speed at the end of the straight, hence an ability to pass. This is still not happening and the New Hampshire race was more of the same.

Greg Biffle drove his heart out and beat an oncoming train across the tracks, the said train being Jimmie Johnson. It’s obvious that everyone has the same chassis to work with but those teams that have more money can make them work. Add to that the disparity that exists in horsepower from manufacturer to manufacturer and further exacerbate it with the ‘have and have nots’ and you end up with races that have not lived up to the hype.

It was great to see Greg Biffle win. It was sad to see a small bolt destroy Kyle Busch’s day. It was dramatic entertainment with dialogue between Dale Earnhardt, Jr and Rick Hendrick. Having stated this one would think that everything NASCAR wants to see happen to make a great race, but everything else in between was a continuation of the problems that have painfully existed the day the first COT hit the track.

It’s time to stop blaming Goodyear for its tires, after all, you can dress up a horse with new shoes, but it doesn’t make it run any faster.


Rob's Side

First it’s not the Car of Tomorrow. It’s here already and it’s called the “New Car”. Are there problems? Yes. Can they be fixed? Yes and they will over time, real competition time, not in Formula One simulators. The car hasn’t raced a full season to date and it has shown marked improvements.

The teams are finally beginning to find the correct direction for this car. Bob Osbourne, Carl Edwards crew chief, couldn’t get their car to handle this past weekend at New Hampshire. Things looked dismal. What did he do? He immediately went back to the hotel to pour over his notes and ultimately changed virtually everything. Bob shows up on Sunday morning and told Carl “we changed virtually everything on the car” and it’s going to work! The net result is that Carl, without even turning a lap to test it out, jumps in and takes the green then shoots out to an early lead ultimately finishing third.

Whining about the new car is like whining that the Chase is all wrong because a driver like Kyle Busch goes into the Chase dominating and comes out of the first round in 8th place. Whether or not that is fair is debatable, but the bottom line is that ‘it is what it is’. Work with it.
 
It’s disappointing that a $25 part takes Kyle Busch from the top spot but that same part could have failed on Reed Sorenson’s car as well. The positive in all this is that the chase is not like the NFL’s playoff system where a team is knocked out every week. Kyle Busch can come back next week and show us what he can do best when the car will let him.

This car was designed by NASCAR’s Research and Development Center for safety. The fact that it has taken the teams time to sort out the handling is irrelevant. They are all playing with the same rules, the same chassis and ultimately the racing will be better off for it.

My point here is to forget all the stuff you hear people saying about the “New Car” and look at the real stories in this sport. The teams will get this car right, Goodyear will catch up and the racing will speak for itself.

Has anyone given serious thought to the possibility that it may not be the cars handling at all, but the commitment of the manufacturers to deliver a competitive power-plant?
 

Michele Rahal from www.RaceDayOnFox.com talks about NASCAR's consolidation.

Call it a recession, call it an economic downturn, call it whatever you like. We’ll let the economic pundits argue over the technicalities, or tea leaves if you will, of where the economy is heading.

The marketing departments of the corporations that breath life into the NASCAR Sprint Cup series don’t care what we, or the economists think it is. If the corporations believe its anything even close to ominous, NASCAR is going to feel the pinch for far longer than one might think.

Anyone can clearly see the wagons circling among the Super Teams of JGR, Hendrick and Roush. How? They’ve begun to consolidate the most marketable drivers who are available and, if necessary, helped these drivers extricate themselves from contracts that are nearing an end.

The losers in this consolidation are clearly the satellite operations such as Yates and other teams that have become second and third tier teams such as Ganassi, DEI and, though it seems ironic, Penske.
Dodge has an apparent power-plant problem and the introduction of a new engine this year is still debatable as to what success that might bring the teams who are sticking with the marquee.

What of the newly formed Stewart-Haas team? If Stewart doesn’t choose a marketable driver or drivers and produce relatively quick results, the sponsors won’t remain. The news that GM is cutting costs doesn’t bode well for this team, other than GM has heavily invested in Stewart. GM cannot afford to pull out of Sprint Cup under the perception that Toyota has chased them out. Forget “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday”, its more a perception of defeat that would further push GM into a financial hole.

However, Troy Clarke, President of GM North America, stated: Motorsports "have not gone without scrutiny. I'm not going to get into specifics about NASCAR. But there will be modifications-changes in our marketing footprint-in this area." He added, "NASCAR, SCCA club racing-we are looking at where we need to be." Funding a championship-winning team such as Chevy's Hendrick Motorsports and drivers of the caliber of Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. costs GM at least $30 million a year.

Very few of the best of the rest have the sponsor or investor power to hang on, Red bull is one that has deep pockets in the person of Dietrich Mateschiz, the owner of Red Bull who fully intends to bring Vickers, Allmindinger and now Scott Speed to the front. Mateschitz does not like to lose and his Formula One efforts have proven that he will spend the money, direct the resources and stay the course until he succeeds.

At the very bottom of this sponsorship crisis lies the basic truth that when a corporation sponsors a team they have to extraneously spend $2 for every $1 they give the teams in order for the investment to pay off in sales, branding or shareholder value. It’s called activating a sponsorship and very few corporations can spend the additional $30-60 million to convert that investment into profits.

On the other hand, make no mistake this isn’t all doom and gloom as NASCAR has seen harder times than we have now. The 1970’s and 1080’s had their share of difficulties with limited manufacture involvement, less expensive sponsorships and, yes, less intensive competition among teams. NASCAR will change, but it will survive.

The pressure to win is great, the pressure to make the Chase is almost unbearable, but the pressure to win the Championship is beyond anything we’ve seen in any of the past years. Toyota has seen to that, thus validating Jack Roush’s cries of more support from Ford.

Roush’s ride through the streets on horseback shouting ‘The Japanese are coming! The Japanese are coming!’ have come true and his early campaign aimed at increased Ford support paid off. Chevrolet stayed the course, introduced a new engine and carefully consolidated its efforts under Hendrick and now Tony Stewart.

Dodge has, unfortunately, found itself painted into a corner as only Gillett-Evernham has risen anywhere near the top. Penske can only skirt the outer reaches of the Chase. Dodge has a great deal of development to do in order to keep from collapsing in its NASCAR efforts. That scenario isn’t so far fetched as the controlling interest in Chrysler is a private equity firm called Cerberus.

Private equity firms have one thing on their minds and that is cost efficiencies. If GM has put their racing programs on the block, imagine what Cerberus might do.

What’s the answer? There is none. The old adage that only the strong survive will be the order of the day and no one will actually have answers about who will be absorbed and who will go away until the Chase is over. Once that happens the silly season we’ve all become used to talking about will seem very small in comparison to who is left standing when we turn our thoughts to Daytona 2009.

Michele Rahal from Race Day on Fox Sports Radio

It sounds like the title from a Hollywood science fiction film that was written about a future event from the past. In some respects it is. The reference here is, of course, the dominant teams that we are seeing consolidate in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Hendricks, Joe Gibbs Racing, Roush-Fenway and Richard Childress Racing. The rest are aspiring to reach these levels of power, though they will require deals with Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers and, to a lesser degree, wealthy privateers.

Let’s state here and now that this movement is in no way a precedent. Without reverting this into a history lesson, this methodology began long before World War II with Auto Union, whom we now know as AUDI and after World War II became a global mission by the great manufacturers of the day to see who could dominate whom. During the Post War years the most notable of these legendary brands were Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari.

Fast forward to the 1960’s and you see the American racing scene, through NASCAR, begin to adopt the same practice, though with fewer multi-car teams such as Holman-Moody, the Woods Brothers, Junior Johnson and, of course, Petty Enterprises. The idea that a one or two car team could lay claim to the label of ‘Super Team’ was largely dependant on the manufacturer itself and whether that manufacturer, whether it be Ford, Chevrolet or Oldsmobile gave the team the “Factory” blessing.

My, how times have changed, or have they? The Daytona 500 broadcast on live television in 1979 jumpstarted the change that would ultimately bring NASCAR into the American lexicon. The demise of Open Wheeled racing (CART) and the numerous Baseball strikes combined with Bill France, Jr’s ingenious television deals convinced the corporations that they had discovered the great marketing vehicle of the modern era.

Though NASCAR has never looked back, it has had its challenges and faces one today. A weak economy, let the pundits argue whether it’s a recession or not, will inherently slow down the investment of corporations in their marketing budgets. It has never made sense to me that the first thing these companies cut is advertising and marketing, but that is the historical process in all businesses. “Cost-Efficiencies” actually appear as revenue on their books. However, not everyone in the NASCAR garage will suffer shut downs and layoffs from this plight. This leads us to the next level of the rise of the Super Teams.

The manufacturers are fighting hard against each other and if you look at the situation between them carefully you discover a method to the madness. Mark Martin un-retiring, again, to drive the #5 Chevrolet for Hendrick and stating that it’s because he wanted to simply “Drive the #5”, Tony Stewart bailing on Toyota and heading for Chevrolet with the promise of ownership and Lord knows what else behind the scenes he’s been promised and Roush-Fenway still managing to prop up Yates Racing without sponsors. All of these moves could be sold to the public on the surface that Toyota is the Evil Empire.

What is actually happening is that the larger teams are grabbing the most marketable, salable and best drivers in order to get the best sponsors, more money, better equipment and some information sharing system that they can use across their platforms whether their drivers like it or not. The smaller teams, such as Waltrip Racing, Petty Enterprises and the Woods Brothers are now left scrambling to find investors that can bring them at least to a level where the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an on-coming train. These are the second tier teams with no big brother.

Joe Gibbs Racing and Red Bull will lead the Toyota assault. Hendrick, without a doubt, and perhaps Stewart-Haas will lead the Chevrolet camp. It may be too late for DEI as the rumors have already begun to swirl that they are dressing up for the investor-mating dance. In Dodge’s case only Evernham can be considered a contender for the moment as the manufacturer is still reeling from what its new masters, Cerberus, a private equity firm, may be doing to their racing program internally. A new engine this year wont be enough to keep up with the other manufacturers as the driver pool shrinks.

What does this mean to the smaller teams that can still manage to compete in the Sprint Cup Series? It means they will be competing for scraps for the foreseeable future even if they are aligned with a manufacturer. If they aren’t a satellite team, they won’t get what they need. It doesn’t mean that the fans won’t tune in, after all their favorite drivers are still in the hunt, they may not travel to the events with the frequency they have in past years, but they will tune in. Television ratings are up as a result of a phenomenon that has been observable when economies are bad or are perceived to be in decline, entertainment such as television, movies and sports in general increase in interest.

How do all these movements relate to the sport in general? It is becoming a manufacturers series much like Formula One. It wasn’t intended to be that way, but in order for it to survive at the popularity level it presently enjoys, it is necessary. It never ceases to amaze me how history, even racing history, repeats itself.

So pick your Super Team, root for that driver in that team and watch NASCAR evolve once again.