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Cutting Back Licensing Fees Another Way NASCAR Could Help Teams

Fourteen years ago, January 5, 1995, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debuted at Phoenix International Raceway. Since then, it’s been an amazing ride as the division morphed from a novelty into a great racing series.

Over this off-season, the landscape of the Truck Series and auto racing in general shifted with the worsening global economic crisis. A round of crew person layoffs – just one day after the close of the NASCAR season – was followed by team closings, mergers and sponsor defections in all three of NASCAR’s top divisions.

NASCAR jumped into the fray as an active partner to the teams announcing an all-division, cost-saving testing ban at all sanctioned tracks. In an effort to prop up the underfunded and underpaid Truck Series, NASCAR recently initiated a number of competition rules including fewer team members at the track, fewer team members over the wall and revised pit stop procedures. There is also a new engine rule where teams will not be able to run three-straight races without using a powerplant that has been run in a previous event.

The results of these changes remain to be seen. The confirmation – good or bad – of those adjustments will come on the racetrack this season, not here in this or any other column. Our question is could NASCAR do more to help?

We think they can

To date, none of the changes NASCAR has made has cost them anything. Crew person coming and goings, team realignments, no testing and altering pit road procedures don’t cost NASCAR a dime to change . In reality, NASCAR probably saved money not having to staff the Daytona tests.

Real help – especially in the Truck Series – needs to be financial in nature. Since we’ve all been told time and again that the NASCAR event purse structure is untouchable, where could NASCAR give the teams a financial break without taking any ‘real’ money out of their pocket?

Here’s a one place we thought of –

Each person who competes in NASCAR races has to have a license. It doesn’t matter who you are – everyone from the driver to the gas runner has to have a license. NASCAR charges each crew member a fee for this license. There are basically two types of licenses. ‘Hard Cards’ – the holy grail license that looks like a credit card with your photo on it – gets you in every race. A ‘Paper License’ gives you the same access, but is less expensive and you pay an additional pit pass fee at the events you choose to attend.

Simply stated, NASCAR makes millions of dollars in licensing fees paid by Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck Series teams. Repeat – millions. Multi-car, multi-division teams like Hendrick, Roush and RCR pay hundreds of thousands of dollars each year just to get their people through the gate. Even the small teams in the Truck Series will pay more than $20,000 per team this year – and that’s with the new Hard Card rules that allow only 12 only per team.

If NASCAR was to cut these licensing fees – instead of increasing them like they did this year – it could be a real savings to the teams. A 50 percent reduction in licensing fees, for instance, would save a Truck team $10,000 annually. At the Nationwide and Cup level, the savings per team would be even more significant. With approximately 150 teams over the landscape of the three top NASCAR divisions, you don’t have to be a math genius to see this would huge cash infusion/savings to the competition side of the sport.

This isn’t like NASCAR is taking money out of its own pocket. It is just money they don’t collect. Given the bottom line of NASCAR’s 2008 financial statement, the sum would hardly make a dent in the year-end earnings. We’re sure NASCAR will respond stating Membership Services needs these fees to admin the program. We’re confident they have expenses, but really, after issuing the license, what else is there to manage?

Here’s a thought – eliminate giving everyone who purchases a NASCAR license a pin, bumper sticker and magazine subscription to slash some fat out of and bring some additional savings to the program. That could save quite a few bucks right there. At the very least, this program could be operated for a lot less buffering the ‘lost income’ NASCAR would suffer in granting the license cost roll backs.

However it would be done, we’re sure that reducing the cost of the licenses would be a great way to give back to NASCAR teams and racers – to be the good partner it claims itself to be.

Obviously, that price rollback is not going to happen this year and frankly, the odds are it won’t happen next either. Instead, there will probably be an annual license fee increase – just like there was this year.

Cutting the annual NASCAR licensing fees is a great idea – an easy way to save money and still race – just like the Truck Series was when this whole darn thing got rolling 14 years ago today.

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