AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR!
It’s hard to believe that when I first started watching NASCAR regularly, there were so many single car owners. Even some owners today were single car owners for quite a while before bringing on a second (or third or fourth) car. Rusty Wallace with Penske, Dale Earnhardt with Childress, Bobby Labonte with Gibbs.
Then, we also had the owner/driver combinations, most notably Geoffrey and Brett Bodine (although they didn’t have that much success). Today, according to the list of Nextel drivers on NASCAR.com, there are only four single car owners, with one (Robby Gordon) an owner/driver. Surprisingly, two of the four are in the top 29 (Raines at 23rd and Gordon at 29th — Kenny Schrader is 40th and Kenny Wallace is 43rd) after the recent Richmond race.
What’s my point, you ask? The days of single car owners are nearly at an end. As a result, I believe that what we’re going to see (and probably are already seeing) is “competition compression” (we saw it last year on several occasions when three multi-car teams captured nearly all of the top ten positions in a race; additionally, no single car owner won a race last year). This “competition compression” is going to have a detrimental effect on second- and third-tier multi-car teams (minimal chance at winning, let alone be in the “Chase”) and fan interest.
Let’s face it — picking Kenny Schrader, Sterling Marlin, or even Bobby Labonte to win on a regular basis is an exercise in futility. Last year all races were won by drivers from six teams! Maybe this explains the “top 35 in owners’ points” syndrome that has been thrust upon us!
Jon