Click Here To Find Cool Nascar Items!

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.

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!

Click Here To Find Cool Nascar Items!

Thinking about starting a NASCAR team?  There is a lot to consider.  You need sponsors, the right driver, a good crew chief, and the best equipment and personnel you can get.  But, as history shows, if you screw up the name on the sign out front, you might as well kiss any success goodbye.

This week’s reports about the possible return of Foster Gillett to NASCAR with driver Kimi Raikkonen and ICE 1 Racing got Journo and me talking about NASCAR team names.  Think about the current powerhouse teams.  What names come to mind?  Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Roush Fenway Racing.  What do all of these teams have in common?  They are all named after their owner.

What’s my point with all this?  When you look back over the recent history of the sport, arbitrarily named teams often struggle to find any measure of success.  Why?  Who knows?

Think about some of the current and defunct teams that were not named in some form or another after their owner(s): Phoenix, Front Row, Red Bull, 2nd Chance, Faith, Go Green, Furniture Row, Red Horse, Panhandle, Green Light, Turn One, Competitive Edge, Eel River, PPI, Bang!, Diamond Ridge, Innovative, and the list goes on.  For most of these teams, success has and was difficult to come by.  Some have scattered wins, or a few top fives and top tens here and there, but not much more than that.

When was the last time a team not named for it’s owner won a Cup Series championship?  You’ve got to go back more than 20 years to 1989.  Rusty Wallace won the Winston Cup championship that year driving for Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max Racing team.  Since then, the Cup Series has been dominated by team owner named organizations.

After Blue Max, only one other non-owner named team has won a national series NASCAR championship.  Driving for Jim Smith’s Ultra Motorsports, Ted Musgrave won the 2005 Truck Series championship.  As a sidenote, Ultra was closed a short time after they were crowned champions.

The reasons why these teams often struggle to succeed or even survive are completely inexplicable.  Many have had top flight drivers and sponsors.  Maybe it’s some sort of weird psychological phenomenon holding them back.  Or maybe it’s just a really strange coincidence.  Either way, it appears it may be all in the name.

So to you future NASCAR team owners out there, let me caution you.  When it comes to naming your team, choose wisely…

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!