Haas to buy Carter Out? Fukuyama in 2003? #26 [and #66] team owner Travis Carter’s will be sweating things out the next few weeks. Carter opened the season with two teams and Bodine partnered with Joe Nemechek. Then sponsor Kmart declared bankruptcy, and Carter was left high and dry. He struggled to keep one team afloat, finally getting a summer sponsorship from DiscoverCard. But now DiscoverCard has decided not to renew. And Carter’s backup plan, a Japanese financed venture with Hideo Fukuyama, may be slipping away into the void as well. He’s got a Monday- morning meeting with the Japanese businessmen willing to put the package together to find out which way they’ll go. Carter said he won’t play the game next season as he did this year, hanging in there on the hope of landing something. “Not me.” What about partner Carl Haas? There’s no word yet. Carter hinted that Haas, the wealthy businessman, might buy out Carter’s half of the team. Carter said he and Haas might run Bodine’s team on a partial schedule next season. “He’s trying to put together something to keep running the thing,” Carter said. “Carl could support the whole thing if he wanted to do that. And I think he’s thinking about it. But there’s a lot of difference between thinking about it and laying it out. And you’ve got to have at least $10 million to run one of these teams, to be even close, to be a middle-level team. This is an expensive business.” If Carter does hang on another season, who might drive his cars? “If Todd wants to drive and he’s still available, we’d probably use him. If he’s not, we’ll just go get somebody. The way I see it now, just go get somebody with a helmet and stick ’em in there.(in part from the Winston Salem Journal)(11-3-2002)
