Have car, will race

In a failing economy, NASCAR's smaller teams return to their roots.

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Thanks to thinner entry lists and the CoT, Jeremy Mayfield Racing can still hang with the big boys.

Every day at Hendrick Motorsports, no fewer than 500 people report to work at a sprawling compound of massive race shops packed with technology that would make NASA do a spit take.

A few miles away, the 10 teams of Roush Fenway Racing are powered by decades of winning races and the deep pockets of the Boston Red Sox ownership group. At the adjacent Concord Regional Airport, a fleet of RFR team planes lift off and touch down around the clock, delivering personnel and parts.

Both juggernaut teams feature sales and marketing staffs that recruit and maintain tens of millions of dollars worth of corporate sponsorship. The scene is the same in the equally imposing hallways of Joe Gibbs Racing, Richard Childress Racing and, to a lesser extent, Earnhardt-Ganassi, Richard Petty Motorsports and Haas-Stewart Racing.

Then there is the scene at Jeremy Mayfield Racing.

"Depending on what day you come over here, we've got a dozen, maybe 20 people working on our racecars," says the soon to be 40-year old driver-owner. Then he smiles. "Don't ask me if they're getting paid … "

Welcome to the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, a world where lean economic times have had a most unlikely, yet most welcome, turn-back-the-clock effect.

"As the season got closer, I realized that I wasn't going to have a ride for 2009. But I also looked around and realized that there were a lot of us out of work. A lot of good people got laid off because of the economy, like engine builders and fabricators and my old crew chief, Tony Furr."

Mayfield looked into his crystal ball and wisely realized that the hard times were likely going to lead to thin entry lists on race weekends. Thanks to the one-size-fits-all Car of Tomorrow—ahem, CoT—he also knew that he could afford to build a few cars that could be used at all types of racetracks, instead of building a fleet of specialty cars like he would've had to do just two years ago.

"Between the CoT and NASCAR's decision to get rid of testing, I knew I could make this work," says the five-time race winner. "I called Tony and told him to look into getting some guys together so we could build a car and go try to make the field for the Daytona 500. I said the same thing to my sponsor, All Sport, and guess what? We did! Man, it doesn't get any more old school than that. That's how we all grew up racing short tracks. That's how NASCAR was built. Run what you brung, and if you're fast enough you get to race."

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Just down the road, out-of-work crew chief Tommy Baldwin rounded up another group of mainly volunteer workers to form (what else?) Tommy Baldwin Racing, and they also made the field for the 500. Soon Joe Nemechek had revived defunct Nemco and came within a few feet of also making the Great American Race, all the while surrounded by family members with "WE NEED A SPONSOR" t-shirts.

"Our approach to finding a sponsor has been pretty simple," explains Nemechek, who owns four Cup wins of his own but is still searching for a sponsor. "We've approached corporations and said, 'I know that so-and-so big race team has told you that they need 20 million for you to sponsor their car. You can sponsor me for a quarter of that or less. Hey, we made that math work the first time I owned my own team, so I know I can make it work now."

"It's the best bargain in racing," says Baldwin, who signed Red Bank Outfitters to sponsor his No. 36 Toyota driven by Scott Riggs. "When Red Bank ran the numbers on the TV coverage they received during Daytona, they couldn't believe it, so they signed on for at least two more races."

So far, these newfound bargains have led to a bit of a boom at the back of the field on race weekends. Post-Daytona car counts have stayed healthier than expected, as more low-dollar teams try to take advantage of the times, from so-called has-beens such as Mayfield, Nemechek and Geoffrey Bodine, to who-the-hell-is-this-guy entries like Mike Garvey, Dexter Bean and Norm Benning.

"It's hard," Baldwin admits. "Being on the phone until the last minute with a potential sponsor, waiting to see if you have the money to send the hauler out the door, telling the decal guy to be ready to crank out a logo to slap on the hood, sweating out qualifying. It will give you ulcers. But damn it's fun. It's racing."

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