|
|
01-17-2009
TruckSeries Perspective: Dennis Huth
 The current economic crisis has forced nearly every business in America to
assess operating costs and find ways to control them. NASCAR teams are no
different and this off-season has been littered with unprecedented crew person
layoffs, team mergers and race shop closings.
The NASCAR division to take the biggest hit in this purge appears to be the
Camping World Truck Series. The smallest of NASCAR's 'Big Three' divisions,
teams in the series have always had a more difficult time attracting sponsorship
than their high-profile Sprint Cup and Nationwide cousins. Additionally, smaller
purse payouts have left teams in the division cash poor and gentlemen owners in
the series - individual businessmen who in the past funded teams with their own
money - scrambling to survive.
Meanwhile, the bottom has fallen out truck sales in the United States. Once a
pillar of profitability for the automakers, dealer lots are bulging with
overstocked allotments of light-duty trucks as Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge and Toyota
all posted double-digit sales losses compared to 2007 totals.
The result is the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series enters the 2009 season with
a host of questions ranging from will there be full fields at races this season,
is the division on life support and rapidly approaching distinction, and is
racing trucks even relevant anymore?
To get a unique perspective on the Truck Series, we contacted Dennis Huth, the
former NASCAR exec who was a driving force behind the formation of the series in
1994 and launch of the division a year later. Considered a feeder series when
first introduced, the Truck Series initially featured low-cost engine rules and
gimmicks like 'Half-Time Breaks' instead of pit stops. Under Huth's direction
from 1995 to 1999, the division quickly grew into a major series competing on
the same racing bill with the Cup Series at tracks like Texas, Las Vegas,
California and Michigan. Huth left NASCAR in 2000 and is now the President of
Racing Speed Associates, LLC, the parent company of the American Speed
Association.
If anyone knows about controlling the cost of racing and how to make it work,
it's Huth.
"In my opinion, there are always two things to consider when you are talking
about the cost of racing - safety and the quality of the show," said Huth in a
phone interview from his ASA corporate offices in Daytona Beach, FL. "I think
NASCAR has been on the right track doing things like limiting testing and
limiting the number of hard cards (garage passes) the teams can have. Bringing
less people to the track and sending fewer guys over the wall is a good way to
cut costs. At the inception of the Truck Series, we didn't even have pit stops.
Of course, that had an effect on the overall cost of running the series, but the
'Half-Time Break' rule was really more rooted in the fact that most of the
tracks we raced did not have appropriate pit facilities - although cost was a
consideration in the decision too. In the long run, not having pit stops helped
teams with less funding stay in play and I still believe that having fewer
people go over the wall is a definite cost savings."
Evidently, NASCAR agrees. In a recent meeting between the sanctioning body and
team owners in the series, discussion included eliminating green/yellow flag pit
stops. In their place, a designated caution period would be instituted where the
trucks would come down pit road, get serviced, and return to the track in the
order they came off.
"One of the many discussions we bounced around was putting a rule in stating you
could only change tires or put fuel in the truck during pit stops - it had to be
an either or thing," Huth stated. "You couldn't do both at the same time. We
thought that would really add the element of tire management to the race. You
just couldn't change tires because the caution flag came out. What they appear
to be considering now - basically a competition caution - seems a lot like what
we had when we did the 'Half-Time Break' back when the series first started."
The early years of the Truck Series saw the grass-roots level division stage
one-day shows in racing outposts like Flemington, NJ, Odessa, MO and
Bakersfield, CA. Today, there are only a handful of one-day events in the
25-event schedule and some shows - like the upcoming season-opening Daytona 250
at Daytona International Speedway - require the teams to be on site for as many
as five days.
According to Huth, the one-day event concept is still a viable cost-saving
option for teams racing in any division.
"I'm still a proponent of one-day shows," said Huth. "You come in, have a
morning practice, qualify in the afternoon and run the race that evening. In my
opinion, the one-day show still works because it saves in hotel rooms and other
travel-related expenses. You save at least one day in hotel costs with a one-day
show. In the economic environment we have today, that's a major expense for the
teams. Working the system and cutting down the number of days at the racetrack
can save a bunch.
"Opponents to the one-day show format say that you have to have more people to
make that work," Huth continued. "Let's say you crack the wall in practice and
destroy your car or truck. You are going to have to have more people to get the
back-up racer ready. You can't do that as quickly if you are only bringing three
or four people to the racetrack."
As the Truck Series evolved from a short-track novelty to a full-blown NASCAR
entity competing on superspeedways, the technical aspects of the division
changed as well. One of the biggest - and most expensive - changes came under
the hood in 2001 when the 9.5:1 compression ratio engine format was scrapped for
the more powerful 12:1 compression model used in the Cup Series.
"The horses are out of the barn right now," said Huth in relation to engine
costs. "Is there a way to bring them back? I think so. NASCAR has a 'built'
engine that they are using in the Camping World East and West stock car series
that seems to be doing its job as far as performance and cost savings are
concerned. To me, the 9.5:1 compression engine that we used in the early years
of the Truck Series had a cost savings associated to it. It cost a lot less than
what teams are spending in today's environment.
"Changing over to the Cup style engine drove the costs up pretty substantially,"
Huth continued. "Now, if they were to switch back to some form of crate or built
engines, it would cost the teams quite a bit of money again. Is there a way to
phase in the new engines while you phase out the ones they're using now? I don't
know, but I would look at all the alternatives. I'm not technical enough to know
what those alternatives are, but if there's a way to save the teams enough money
to make it to the next event, it's at least worth an exploration of it."
While Huth is unsure about what it would take to get engine costs in line -
costs that are now estimated to be $35,000 per race for a championship
contending team - he is confident NASCAR is on target with the recent
cost-cutting ban on testing.
"I believe it's a good move and in talking to some of the teams, they say it is
going to give them a big cost savings," Huth stated. "Whenever you change
anything, however, the question becomes how do you maintain the quality of the
show? The Truck Series is the third-tier of NASCAR, so you have a lot of teams
that may move up from other components or motorsports whether that's a weekly
track or another touring series. These teams need additional track time.
"We negotiated a day with the racetracks for a practice the day before a race -
a NASCAR controlled test date," continued Huth. "Everybody could test all day
long and use it as an open test day. We didn't care what they did, we didn't
tech the trucks that day. The teams could put anything on their trucks at these
test days, things like telemetry or anything else. That saved a trip back and
forth to the racetrack that you may or may not have used as a test date. That's
why having an open test session at the track the day before the race worked for
us. It could work again. The teams are already there, so it's definitely going
to save money and still maintain the integrity of the show."
Huth also suggested arranging discounted blocks of hotel rooms as part of track
sponsorships and serving common meals for the teams at a reduced cost could help
keep expenditures in line.
"Ultimately, the teams are responsible for what they do," said Huth. "If they
come into town on Thursday and they don't have to be there until Friday night,
that's their choice. On the flip side, if a sanctioning body or a company trying
to make a business of it could provide rooms and meals at discounted costs, that
might be a savings option. I remember when we did the Cup exhibition races in
Japan in the 1990's. The track served breakfast, lunch and dinner under a big
tent. That was precipitated by us being in a foreign country, but that doesn't
mean you can't do that kind of stuff here."
In the end, Huth indicated that the spirit of cooperation is one factor that
could ultimately allow not only the Truck Series, but motorsports in general to
survive and prosper in what are surely challenging times for all.
"We're in such a funky economy now that everyone is trying to save on whatever
they can," said Huth. "But it still comes down to you have to have a show.
However you can make that happen is the key. You have to be able to give the
fans and the television audience as much entertainment as you can. We had to be
innovative in the beginning of the Truck Series because we had to be able to
make it survive. We would 'let the drivers off their leash,' let them say what
they wanted to. I felt we built a following by expanding the 'rules of the road'
so-to-speak - hence the 'Tough Trucks' theme that followed. Vanilla should be
used in cookies and cakes, not in racing. Naturally, we had our share of talks
in the NASCAR trailer with our competitors when lines were crossed.
"Most of what we were doing dealt with selling the product and keeping it
affordable for everyone - including the teams," Huth concluded. "That still
applies today. It's a matter of everyone pushing the same way. The sanctioning
bodies, teams and tracks have to work together and if it means a little less
market margin of profit to accomplish what needs to be done - to preserve the
show - then they have to do it. There's going to have to be a give and take on
all sides. Everyone is going to have to work together and think outside the
box."
More Racing News...
|
|
|
|
Discuss