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I started to think about this post a few weeks ago. At the time, Germain Racing, for the second season in a row, was threatening to shut down Todd Bodine’s #30 team for a lack of sponsorship. It was stunning to think the reigning series championship was about to be parked for a lack of sponsorship. The troubles at Germain though are nothing new for Series champions. Consider the following cases.

NASCAR veteran Ted Musgrave won the 2005 Truck Series championship driving for Jim Smith and Ultra Motorsports. The two had a long and fruitful run together including 16 wins, 12 poles and that one championship. Not long after winning in ’05 though the team closed the doors after losing support from Mopar and failing to get support from Ford.

Musgrave was lucky enough to find another ride with Germain for the following two seasons, but never matched his success with Ultra. He had a short stint with HT Motorsports before exiting the sport mid way through the 2008 season.

Ron Hornaday, Jr. won championships in 2007 and 2009 and has undoubtedly had a very successful run with Kevin Harvick Inc. and Dale Earnhardt Inc. before that. It was after Hornaday’s 2009 championship that his long time crew chief Rick Ren left KHI for the newly created Kyle Busch Motorsports.

Since then Hornaday has won just three races (compare that to six each in 2008 and 2009) and has just 17 top-fives (compare to 15 in 2009 and 14 in 2008) and 20 top-tens (compare to 20 in 2009 and 18 in 2008).

Certainly winning the championship hasn’t been devastating to Hornaday’s career, but the once dominant team is no more. Losing Rick Ren was nothing short of very bad luck.

The saddest case of all is Johnny Benson who won the 2008 Truck Series championship with Bill Davis Racing. Benson joined the team in 2004 and together they scored 14 wins, 50 top-fives and 72 top-tens. Benson though faced a fate similar to his contemporary Ted Musgrave when the team shut down shortly after the end of the season.

Tom Deloach and Red Horse Racing brought Benson on in 2009 but he made it just eight races before the team was shut down due to a lack of sponsorship. Just a week after that Benson was seriously injured in a SuperModified race.

It looked like Benson may have a chance to return in 2010 with Kyle Busch Motorsports, but sponsorship never materialized and Benson raced just a few times for various organizations.

That brings us back to Todd Bodine. He received a reversal of fortune after Randy Moss Motorsports, on its last legs but with a very lucrative sponsorship deal, agreed to a “partnership” with Germain to keep Bodine in a ride through the end of the season.

Is there a curse? Maybe not. But in the last six seasons at least, it’s undeniable that there are some strange instances of bad luck for the series’ championship winner.

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I fully understand the idea behind putting the best face on something. It’s in the best interest of companies, and in our case race teams, to make sure they’re portrayed in the best light possible. With the uptick of “funded drivers” in recent years though this desire to put the best light on things has taken a turn toward the laughable.

Consider the announcement this week that Nelson Piquet Jr. is joining Kevin Harvick Inc. to run the full truck schedule in 2011. In this case it wasn’t the team – their release was actually pretty moderated – but the driver himself that left me shaking my head.

Piquet said, talking about where he was at and where he wanted to be in the future:

“I want to get there because I deserve it and because of wins and because teams want me to be there, not because I’m going to bring a sponsor.”

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s great he wants to move through the ranks of NASCAR based on merit, not on money. That said, I have a hard time believing his hire at KHI is a purely charitable move on the team’s part.

Coincidentally, Piquet settled a libel suit with Renault just last week regarding comments they made about Piquet following his involvement in the now infamous “Crashgate”. No figure was announced, but it was said to be “substantial damages.” I honestly don’t think the two are directly connected – you don’t generally get a contract worked out in seven days. I digress.

This rosy picture people like to paint though gets to be a little much. Remember last season when Richard Childress said at a press conference John Wes Townley had a lot of “talent”? He then cut Townley after five races – like he didn’t know what he was getting into. Apparently by talent, he meant money.

Or how about Brian Scott? After signing the young driver to run for his family owned team in 2011, J.D. Gibbs said:

We’ve done this enough to know we’re never going to do a deal just to do a deal. We learned in the past the hard way. Unless you have a guy there that you think can win races, win championships and compete week in and week out, it’s not worth doing. So, our guys really kind of got together a while ago and figured, ‘Hey, Brian is one of those guys when you see what he’s done in just a really kind of a short career span,’ and I think that’s really going to bode well for us.

Overly optimistic and rosy? Perhaps. I think the truth is, he’s a pretty competent driver and he brings with him a lot of money. Did they sign him because he was the best candidate to bring Gibbs another Nationwide Series championship? I doubt it.

I write this not to bring any of these guys down. I really do hope for their sake, and the sake of the sport they’re successful in their endeavors. I just wish we could come to a point when we can call an orange an orange, and not try to make it the apple that it will never be.

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…nothing other than they’re all in my weekend notes (lame I know).

Saturday was a good day to be 19. Well a good day to be 19 if you happened to drive in the Nationwide Series.

In his first career NASCAR appearance on Saturday, 19-year-old Parker Kligerman scored his first career pole. Then 19-year-old Joey Logano went on to win the race, battling his teammate Kyle Busch down to the wire.

Back to Kligerman though. The kid looked impressive. Starting next to veteran Kyle Busch, Kligerman was able to keep the lead for seven laps and even bested Busch on the start. The team battled some handling issues throughout the race, but Kligerman was able to finish a respectable 16th.

While I know Kligerman wasn’t happy with the finish, a pole and 16th place finish in his first ever major NASCAR event is not anything to sneeze at. Look for Kligerman back in the car at Homestead.

Oh and don’t forget Kligerman’s locked in a championship battle in the ARCA series with Justin Lofton. That wraps up this weekend at Rockingham.

Tony Stewart Back In Victory Lane

There were some that thought Jimmie Johnson would take his momentum from last week and begin his championship charge at Kansas. I thought there was a good chance.

In the interest of a compelling championship race though it was good to see Tony Stewart pull out the win.

There is now just more than 100 points separating first from seventh.

The Hendrick cars definitely look good as they have in years past but don’t count out the Penske, EGR or Gibbs cars. They’ve all been running very consistently and one win from any of them could change the tide.

I know a lot of you are critics of the Chase, but it makes the racing more exciting and the mistakes more devastating.

I’m looking very much forward to the coming weeks.

Nelson Piquet Jr.? In the Truck Series?

He wouldn’t be our first F1 convert; but he would be the first with a cloud over his head.

Soon after being released from his Renault team earlier this year, it came to light Piquet wrecked himself at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix so his teammate Fernando Alonso could win.

The scandal, better known as ‘crash-gate,’ has brought a ban and a suspension for two Renault F1 officials. Piquet won’t face any sanctions, but likely won’t be able to live down the stigma associated with the scandal.

I suppose he figures NASCAR fans haven’t caught wind of the firestorm. He may or may not be right.

Whatever the case SPEED is reporting Piquet will test in a Red Horse Racing truck on October 12th with “an eye towards a future in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series with in two years.”

It’ll be interesting to see how he performs.

Hendrick’s (Almost) Failed Inspection

Talk about a bad deal. Hendrick got busted for not breaking the rules?

While they passed post race inspection, the bodies on both the #5 and #48 were so close to being outside the tolerance they were warned by the sanctioning body not to cut it so close.

With the black helicopters circling above and the scent of the Carl Long affair still hanging in the air (remember this was a body not the motor), many loyal conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork. Hendrick paid off NASCAR (I’m sure, I said sarcastically).

The fact is they didn’t break the rules, NASCAR sent it’s message and the crew chiefs were doing what they were supposed to. Working in those gray areas is what those guys get paid to do and if you’re not pushing it, you’re not doing your job.

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Sponsorship, or lack thereof has been on the mind of just about every team executive in NASCAR this season. While the year has been rough for the sponsorship market as a whole, in no place has it hit harder then in the Truck Series.

The biggest anomaly in the series are the amount of experienced, winning drivers that have been affected.

Take defending champion Johnny Benson. He became the latest victim of the economy this week after Red Horse Racing shut down his unsponsored team. I believe the only time the team actually had any deal was at Daytona with K&N. The rest of the time the truck has remained white.

Now he hear Timothy Peters is joining Red Horse from his own fledgling organization. Peters’ biggest asset is the Strutmasters sponsorship he brings with him.

Todd Bodine doesn’t quite know Johnny’s plight, but he has been driving race-to-race all season. Every time Bodine has been on the cusp of reaching his final race, sponsorship has come through and they have been able to continue. The brilliant thing this team has been doing is publicizing their struggle and they have gotten a lot of great exposure as a result.

Germain ran several very small sponsors early on in the season (which were plugged heavily during the broadcasts), and then signed Copart for the last several races. Copart has three races remaining with the team this season. After that the team finds itself in a familiar situation.

Another former champion feeling the pinch is 26-time winner Mike Skinner. He joined Randy Moss Motorsports this season after Bill Davis Racing folded. Skinner brought with him a partial sponsorship from Exide and some support from Toyota, but he and most especially his wife Angie have been working very hard to put together smaller deals for the holes in his schedule.

They have had everything from Daytona Beach law firm Rue & Ziffra to Bad Boy Mowers on the truck. Mike and Angie, instead of waiting and hoping on others to find deals, took the initiative and are keeping Mike’s career alive and still very vibrant.

Unfortunately NASCAR has been less than enthusiastic about furthering the Truck Series. It has become the overlooked series, almost an after thought by the sanctioning body. If you want an example of this look at purse money. Just something to consider; the top grossing driver, in terms of purse money, in the Cup Series is Tony Stewart. He has pulled in $3,459,120. In the Nationwide Series, Kyle Busch is tops; he has earned $506,620. In the Truck Series Todd Bodine holds the crown with $286,875 in winnings. He is not the norm either. The points leader at the moment, Matt Crafton, has pulled in $130,000 less than Bodine. While it is true it’s a little cheaper to run in the Truck Series, it’s not that much cheaper.

Another big issue the series faces is a lack of media exposure. While they have been making ratings strides on Speed, the untapped market is very large. Despite the extensive amount of programming that covers the other series, the Truck Series has very often left out in the cold.

And now we have reached the point where fewer than 30 trucks will even actually finish the race. At Texas there were only 22 trucks running at the end. This weekend there are 32 on the entry list and I counted at least six start and parks.

It’s hard not to commend the teams who are actually fighting and going the distance. I can’t say enough times how much I love the Truck Series. It is the most fun to be around and the best racing you’ll see most weekends. Unfortunately NASCAR has been slow to give the series the credit it deserves. It will be interesting to see how the remainder of the season plays out for those sponsor-challenged teams.