NASCAR officials met with owners from the Camping World Truck Series at the Kevin Harvick, Inc. shop on Thursday to discuss potential procedural changes for this season. Chief among those discussed changes was the possible elimination of green/yellow flag pit stops, multiple sources told FOXSports.com. The sanctioning body wanted to open dialogue to discuss cost saving measures to ensure the health of the series this season since the truck count – and the sponsored truck count in particular – has diminished drastically. When the truck series first debuted, the series was able to limit expenses by having teams pit once at halfway under a competition caution and have fewer men over the wall. A similar plan could be in the works that would bring trucks down pit road according to the order on the track. Teams would be allowed to pit and the trucks would then return to the track in the same order, similar to a TV time out in football or basketball. Last season, 27 teams drove full time and 11 of 25 races had a full field of 36 trucks starting. While no confirmed counts have been released yet, it appears that number will be lower as some teams have shut down during the off season. The full impact of the economy likely won’t be felt by the sport until after the season opening weekend at Daytona.(Fox Sports)(1-16-2008)
UPDATE: During an interview on Sirius NASCAR Radio’s Sirius Speedway, Camping World Truck Series Competition Director, Wayne Auton talked about the some of the ideas discussed during the meeting at KHI between team owners and NASCAR officials. NASCAR has already talked about putting in place limits for the number of crew members, but other topics such as how many people a team will be allowed to bring to the race track, eliminating pit stops were among the issues talked about. Auton said that there may be some “tweaks” made, however, the main focus is to find ways to cut costs while ensuring fans continue to see competitive racing. Auton said that any forthcoming announcements would be made by the end of next week to be put in place prior to the season-opener at Daytona.(1-16-2009)
UPDATE 2: Limiting engine costs also was discussed, including the use of a spec motor for races 1-mile and under – [Mike] Hillman said his team already has tested the one used in the Camping World East and West series and it is acceptable. Usage of the engine would allow teams in those series to possibly race in the Truck Series some. “I think that motor could run everywhere except Daytona and Talladega the way it is,” Hillman said. NASCAR already has eliminated the need for each team to have a scorer, which will save teams about $30,000 a year, [TRG’s Butch] Hylton said. “There’s no good answer,” Hylton said. “I wouldn’t want to be in NASCAR’s shoes. At least they’re trying to do something for us. They realize the economy is bad and everyone is struggling with sponsorship, so they’ve jumped in here and they’ve listened to the owners.”(SceneDaily.com)(1-17-2009)
