ESPN Sprint Cup

NASCAR may have finally hit the glass ceiling, which, if you drive a car at 180 mph, can be a real bitch.

It seems that the sport that can grow forever as long as the fossil fuels hold out is finally running out of the one thing NASCAR can't do without.

Investors.

It appears this weekend's race at Rockingham, the Damn It Will You Speed It Up There Charlie 400, will feature as many as eight non-series regulars driving with inferior equipment.

That is to say, there won't be a full field of 43 fully sponsored teams of turn-lefters this weekend. And this, for NASCAR, can only be considered a comedown from the sky's-the-limit days.

Now before you get your grease-stained khakis in a bunch there, Herb, we are fully prepared to acknowledge that nobody else in the racing game tries to go 43 deep for nine months. NASCAR is still the biggest cow in the pasture and will stay that way until gas goes to $4.49 a gallon.

But it's hard to sell continual growth -- at least on-track -- when it is clear to anyone with a rudimentary fourth-grade education that 35 is less than 43.

Thus, the folks at Rockingham are fielding a full field only because NASCAR's payment policy doles out just enough to the lowly finishers to keep them coming, no sponsors, no hopes and all. And you know what this kind of subsidy-type behavior leads to?

Socialism.

And worse, the Montreal Expos.

Hey, it takes buckets full of dough to sponsor a car for a full season, and these aren't the flushest of times in our economic history. The Martha Stewart Racing Team, for example, isn't likely to enter any cars any time soon.

So maybe asking for 43-car fields is a bit ambitious. At some tracks, it is downright nuts.

Still, this is the first time since NASCAR became NASCAR!!!!! that the sport's outer limits have been felt and seen this drastically, and one of the things about capitalism is that those who do not grow, go backward.

This is normal in the sporting biz. The four major sports have expanded to their logical civic limits, even though the NFL still gets an uncomfortable skin rash when the letters "L" and "A" are juxtaposed. Lesser sports grow and recede, and some just disappear. The play-for-pay gig has reached its logical limit, and the news is finally getting to NASCAR.

Toward that end, the sport's grand playoff plan is re-jiggering its fields downward for the final 10 races of the year. Maybe the Frances knew that the money isn't pouring forth the way it used to, and came up with the playoff plan as a way to hide the effects, or maybe this is just a bad case of evolution on the hoof. You know, investing in drivers not named Earnhardt, Kenseth, Stewart, Labonte or Gordon becoming a tougher sell.

Either way, this is NASCAR's first real "Rooms To Let'' sign in years, and while there is no telling what it will mean, we know what it means now.

Fewer racers to memorize. Quicker, breezier "Speed Week'' shows. Fewer complaints about tight tracks and the dangerous conditions that result.

Oh, and now that there are two races at the California Speedway outside L.A., there is at least one stretch of road south of Fresno where traffic won't stink.

And one other thing. NASCAR won't be walking around with quite the same smug bounce in its corporate step.

NASCAR always benefited from no labor problems, no steroid problems, from a core audience of the truly committed, and from a talent pool that could mix charm and danger in an appealing way.

But it always assumed that the money would follow, and now they are finding that, well, it ain't as simple as all that.

Fortunately, the NASCAR people aren't stupid, and they will adjust to these new conditions. That's how smart people operate.

But the truly creative types are the ones who know how to make "no" seem like "yes," and if NASCAR can make 35 look like 43, well, math is flexible that way.

Just ask the New York Yankees' payroll department.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com