NASCAR Team Layoffs Start to Pile On

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Joe Nemechek and the Furniture Row Racing team were the latest NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team to see some significant cutbacks as the sport heads into what could be the most anxious and interesting off-season it has ever seen.

Nemecheck, driver of the No. 78 Chevrolet who won the April pole at Talladega Superspeedway, was notified that his team is looking at the high-probability chance of not competing in 2009 -- just days after the team owner indicated the team would compete but with a reduced schedule.

Aside from Nemechek and Furniture Row Racing's situation that very likely saw a number of the team's employees at the shop located in Colorado get laid off this week, NASCAR teams have been letting team members go left and right in the past week.

We saw last week that Dale Earnhardt Inc., and Chip Ganassi Racing merged to a four-car operation and eliminated 116 jobs from the new Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing operation and the news continued in full force after the season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway last Sunday.

The Frontstretch has compiled a list of the team who have let workers go this season, and it's not too pretty:

Layoffs

DEI -- 116 Employees
Ganassi -- 71 (from shutdown of the No. 40 team in June)
Petty -- 23
Wood Brothers -- 22
Stewart-Haas -- 16
Hendrick -- 12
Hall of Fame -- Unknown
Yates -- Unknown Bill Davis -- Unknown, but down to bare bones staff at shop

Right there alone, without the numbers from Furniture Row factored in or the numbers from other teams who will also be laying more employees off in the near future, the NASCAR team world is looking at close to 300 job losses in 2008.

Those numbers don't apply completely to the Nationwide Series (Frontstretch says Fitz Motorsports might close entirely) or to the Camping World Truck Series where a ton of manufacturer support has already been pulled. Plus, each of these race teams has vendors and suppliers for many parts of their racing operation, and you can sure bet that those providers have felt an impact as well.

It's certainly not an easy time to be an employee in NASCAR at the moment, but hopefully, the sport can weather the poor economy in a good fashion.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

11-21-2008 @ 7:33AM

Craig said...

I had heard last year from an insider this would happen to NASCAR. The COT costs hurt so many teams. Their sponsorship money could not cover the costs and the driver's out of this world salaries made finding a sponsor nearly impossible. If the drivers truly cared about the race teams they drove for they would not be asking 10 milliom dollars a year to do what they would pay to do. Will any of these greedy drivers give back to the teams and take a salary cut? The teams also spent foolishly as well on engineers. Most engineers are not worth the coffee they carry around all day. New ideas never came out of books. Ideas come from sweat and the guys that have racing in their blood. Race teams that depend heavily on their engineers have failed in the chase. Joe Gibbs Racing is a good example of a team that looks to their engineers for all the answers and come up short.

11-24-2008 @ 5:23PM

Stewart Fan said...

Jeff Hammonds wrote an article on Fox Sports about how some Nascar team(s) are not classy. Jeff was upset that pit crew members were fired in the back of a hauler at Homestead on Friday. They were away from their families and stuck in Homestead for 2 days. He never named the team that treated their workers that badly. Jayski linked to an article by Clair B Lang from XM and she said that the 01 team was fired in the back of the hauler.

If that is true then DEI's owner is truly a sorry ass human being without a heart.

I would love to know how much money is donated by the Dale Earnhardt Foundation. I can't find the records. I want to know if her charity is valid. She has contracts written up that crew chiefs have to work for the charity.

I'm just asking!

11-25-2008 @ 12:35AM

Robert said...

Get rid of Nemecheck too! He still can't drive.

11-25-2008 @ 10:17PM

shirley said...

iwenttoseetonybeatrstothefindlinetheracingwasnaettoseeintalldeaglisfallraingiamabigoftonyandryanhewilldoingagoodjobwithinthefristyearornextyearintwoorthreen

11-26-2008 @ 12:32PM

lorraine said...

Yes Theresa (owner of DEI) is as mean as they say. Look what she did to Dale Jr. (her step son). All she does is sit in her ivory tower and count money. well the money is gone and they are merging with another team. Dale senior is probably turning over in his grave if there is such a thing. What goes around comes around. Dale JR. is doing great without her.