Jeff Burton hasn’t been in a Busch Series car on a weekend when the car of tomorrow is being used in the Nextel Cup Series before today. But the Richard Childress Racing Cup driver admits that the impact of the car of tomorrow on teams that compete in both series could be felt. There’s already a limit on the technology that can be shared between the cars in the two series, but currently the Cup team owners can gain from racing in the Busch Series. That may change with the additional use of the car of tomorrow. Burton pointed out that while people seem to think it’s easy for a Cup team to add a Busch program, it’s a financial stretch to do so. He says that Cup owners are “pushed to the very limit with the amount of sponsorship dollars you can get for a Busch program, and the amount of money it costs to run it and run it effectively, it’s difficult to make money doing that. And the reason you want to make money is so you can buy more technology so you can do all this.” If a team isn’t making money, and the team can’t gain any useful technology, and the driver can’t gain any extra ideas on things that could help him drive his Cup car, then what is the point of crossing over? Burton says that if that access to information is lost, the Busch program runs the risk of becoming a distraction. If that happens, not only could drivers cease to compete in both series, but owner involvement could change as well.(SceneDaily.com)(4-20-2007)
