NASCAR officials have hinted lately that BGN fields might be reduced to 36 cars in 2002, an obvious casualty of our nation’s staggering economy. Given that at least three of the BGN top-10 teams — the # 17, 74 and 98 (not #48 as CNN/SI originally had listed in the story) cars — have stated that, barring major developments, they will not run full schedules in 2002, it’s clear that the series has a few problems. It’s equally clear that NASCAR can and has weathered hard times, but given that a number of Busch races this year have been run without a full complement of cars, the move to a smaller field might save the series some potential embarrassment(CNN/SI)(11-7-2001) UPDATE: been informed that both the #48 Team and the #74 Team plan to run a FULL 2002 BGN schedule and that the #74 and driver Chad Little plan to attempt up to ten Winston Cup races(11-8-2001)
