NASCAR Gets Tough On Multi-Car Owners

In Sunday's sports section of the Florida Times-Union (10/9/2005), Don Coble writes that NASCAR is planning to limit multi-car teams in the future in order to make it more competitive for single-car and prospective owners. While NASCAR has a rule in place that currently prohibits an owner from owning more than two teams, apparently owner Jack Roush gets around that rule by making Mark Martin, Geoff Smith and his mother, Georgetta Roush, car owners for three of his five teams. Roush isn't the only multi-car owner -- Hendrick Motorsports has five cars, and Joe Gibbs Racing has three cars.

According to NASCAR chairman, Brian France:

"We don't like the fact that the independent teams, or, in particular, a new owner looking at coming in the door, have a daunting task to compete, and the concept of having to have five teams, three teams.....That means the opportunities aren't there for young drivers, it means opportunities aren't there to create the next Rick Hendrick and have the success. It ultimately means that we don't field as many competitive cars as we'd like to field."

NASCAR president Mike Helton added:

"Jack Roush has absolutely played by the rules.... We don't care if Jack's got five, six or 10 cars if it were good for the sport. But we don't think it's good for the sport, and we have to address that, and that's a big move for us."

What is "good for the sport" is oftentimes a difficult question to answer. Sometimes the answer differs depending upon whose perpective is being considered. Obviously, the more cars a particular owner has in a race, the better the odds are for that owner to win the race. Therefore, presumably the single car-owner is at a disadvantage because more multi-car operations means there are more cars in the event for the single car-owner to compete against.

But does the NASCAR fan really care whether there are multi-car owners? Indeed, maybe the fans would rather have multiple drivers on the racetrack affiliated with one name they are familiar with such as a Roush or a Hendrick Motorsports. Or do multi-car operations have an adverse impact on the fans by bringing into question the propriety of the competition among the drivers -- In other words, does a Roush driver really have an incentive to beat another Roush driver in the same race? [Would baseball fans care if George Steinbrenner owned two baseball teams?] Or maybe it doesn't even matter to the NASCAR fan who the owners are and how many cars they have in a race.

In any event, it will be interesting to see how NASCAR resolves this issue.