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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Mergers, Buyouts and Closures…. Oh My

Today’s Nascar is looking more like the trading floor of the New York Stock exchange as teams are attempting to gain any financial advantage as possible. This past week was a banner week for Jayski and team owner rumors.

Not to try to be Nostradamus, but the many Nascar experts that felt that DEI would become DIE without Junior may have to use their mulligan. It seems that the ‘wicked step mother’, Teresa just might have a little more savvy and knowledge of how to run a race team than many wanted to give her credit. Not only did she keep 51% ownership of the race team, she has now acquired much (if not all) of the extra technology and equipment that Junior was complaining about DEI not having. The only real question that remains is how Nascar will handle the ‘trading’ out of owner points.

Robert Yates has hinted for almost a half decade that he would ‘get out’ of ownership if the right opportunity arose. His main obstacle was his loyalty to his son and Doug’s job security and well-being. Insert Champ Car conglomerate Newman/Hass. Newman/Hass may or may not bring a positive change to the on going turn around at RYR. But at this point in Robert’s life, just about anything to help relieve some of the day-to-day responsibilities of a Nascar owner shouldn’t be a bad thing. The real question is what role (if any) Robert will have after this buyout. Robert has said numerous times that he would prefer to just focus on the RYR engine program.

Lastly, with all this moving around of race teams and owners, there will be some poor single car team that will be forced to shut their doors. Of course the naysayers will blame the governing body for this, but in reality, weeding out the field fillers can only make the sport more stable in the long run.

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