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The “Off Season”; Some Continue to Win, Some Get Laid Off

By: Drew Hierwarter


Not everybody is done racing for the year, Kyle Busch won his fourth major Super Late Model race of the season when he took the checkers for the 42nd annual Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida. Busch took the lead late in the 300 lap affair when he passed the 2005 Snowball winner, Eddie Mercer. Mercer was able to remain in second place to finish just ahead of NASCAR Nationwide Series regular Steven Wallace. Bobby Gill, who has won the Snowball Derby twice before, came from the last starting position to finish fourth. Despite being involved in a minor wreck early in the race, John Bolen recovered to finish fifth.

 

Busch has made a hobby of running the bigger late model races when his NASCAR touring schedule permits. In 2009 he also won the Speedfest at Lanier Speedway in Georgia, the Redbud 300 at Anderson Speedway in Indiana, and the Winchester 400 at Winchester Speedway, also in Indiana. Busch collected $22,500 for his Snowball win.

 

 

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Once again the all too familiar end-of-season layoffs are taking place in several of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup teams. Reports of 15 to 25 people at Red Bull Racing losing their jobs while over at Yates Racing the company needs to get down to four teams from the current six. (9, 19, 43, 44, 96 and 98) The pain is also being felt in the smaller teams, TRG Motorsports has laid off the #71 car’s crew chief, Slugger Labbe. A replacement has yet to be named.

 

 

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And it isn’t just race teams that are feeling the pressure to downsize. Ron Green has been released from his position as the director of public Relations for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Green has worked at the speedway and for the IRL for the past eleven years. Word is that this may just be the start of more layoffs and that huge financial losses are driving a major reorganization of staff.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series, Atlanta, Toyota, IRL, ARCA/ReMax, NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “The “Off Season”; Some Continue to Win, Some Get Laid Off”

  1. Greg G Says:
    December 9th, 2009 at 9:19 am

    I really believe that you are correct and that next year will bring BIG cuts to all the NASCAR teams. I wonder if it will hurt the big guys more than the smaller teams. Sponsorships will be so much harder to get for any of the teams going into 2010.

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