Feud of the Week: Struggling GM's support; dump Truck Series, one MIS race?
CBSSports.com's Brian De Los Santos and Pete Pistone provide analysis on three weekly racing topics.
We welcome your question submissions. If you have a question or hot racing topic you'd like to see discussed, post it here .
| Pete Pistone | Brian De Los Santos |
| Should General Motors and Chrysler be funneling money to any NASCAR series or organizations while under bankruptcy protection? Do you believe the exposure provided by being in NASCAR justifies the costs? | |
 While the auto manufacturers are suffering financially and have indeed filed for bankruptcy protection, they are still in business and need to promote, advertise and market themselves regardless of the economic strife. Both are still in the business of selling vehicles and NASCAR still provides a pretty solid platform to do just that. Using the sport as a means of showcasing its products and in turn selling brand loyalty and then cars isn't as easy as it used to be but it's still a viable option in the overall business plan. Obviously these companies are not going to be able to spend as many resources in NASCAR as they have in the past but I don't see any pulling out completely either. | Considering the state of their businesses, pouring money into NASCAR should be the least of the worries for GM and Chrysler at the moment. Not to mention that just because they pull their funding doesn't mean that teams couldn't/wouldn't choose to run Dodge or Chevrolet. I realize it's a glorified form of marketing, but I'm not sold it's paying off, especially in the age of the COT, which has taken car identity away from the automakers. Chevrolet has dominated the win column and the championships over the last several years, but people weren't exactly breaking down doors to buy Monte Carlos and Impalas. I don't doubt there's a legion of fans that will only root for and buy from a certain manufacturer, but I believe they're in the minority. I don't see brand loyalty among NASCAR fans as much as I used to. I've seen plenty of Toyotas carrying Earnhardt Sr. and Earnhardt Jr. stickers. GM and Chrysler need to focus on getting their financial books in order and return to NASCAR when they have the means to do so. |
 COMMUNITY GUEST 'BERLYN3014': This question is hard for me because I have mixed feelings. For a lot of people that aren't interested in auto racing the gut reaction is probably that they shouldn't be putting money into NASCAR. But as an auto racing fan, I want them to. It would help if the cars were more like they used to be, closer to what you could buy if you were to buy one from a dealer. Then it could be justified as part of the development of improving safety of the cars on the road. The exposure that these companies receive from NASCAR is well worth the money. Even with the ratings going down, NASCAR is still a very popular sport and to reach that number of people in other ways would cost the companies a lot more in the long run. | |
| GM, Chrysler and Ford have all pulled their support from the Truck Series. Should NASCAR consider dropping the series? | |
 The Trucks and Nationwide Series are being hit the hardest by the economic downturn and not just from the latest salvo of GM pulling its financial support from each series. There are several teams in both circuits either sitting idle or out of business completely and even the ones that do show up and are supporting the tours this year are mostly underfunded. But both divisions are still important in the overall NASCAR picture and need to continue through these tough times. The Nationwide and truck circuits provide a training ground for drivers, crew member and even team owners. Both also offer NASCAR an opportunity to bring its product to markets outside the Sprint Cup calendar like Milwaukee, Iowa, Kentucky, Memphis, Nashville, Montreal and St. Louis. It's a down period right now but both are important and need to be maintained. |  The Truck Series is running on fumes. Without a doubt NASCAR should -- at the very least -- think about suspending the series for a year or two, though I’m not against pulling the plug permanently. The novelty has long worn off. Not to mention that I’ve heard that Toyota might be considering cutting funding as well. But even if they were the lone manufacturer to remain, I can only imagine attendance slipping even more than it already is to see a bunch of Toyotas running around the track. There is still plenty of resentment toward Toyota for invading NASCAR and I don’t doubt some people link this intrusion to the financial struggles of the U.S. automakers. I think the Nationwide Series could reap the rewards of the elimination of the Truck Series and, hopefully, it could morph back into the training ground for up and comers that it was intended to be. |
| COMMUNITY GUEST 'BERLYN3014': I don't think so. The series has some really good drivers and can be very entertaining. It might do better if there were a way to get it on mainstream TV. Others are like myself and don't get Speed, ESPN or TNT, and because of that, the series isn't getting as much exposure as I think it should. If you were to have more races where people could see them and be well advertised then you might get a bigger following for the Truck Series and therefore more money for the people and companies associated with it. But they should look at every possible option to grow before considering dropping the series. | |
| Attendance was poor and the overall racing not all that enthralling at Michigan on Sunday. Should Michigan lose its second date? | |
 Let's tackle the attendance side of this one first and although yes, the MIS crowd was down, there were still an estimated 100,000 fans in the stands, a very solid showing indeed in one of if not the hardest hit economic areas of the country. That's more than turnout in Atlanta in early March and a crowd that some tracks on the schedule would love to have in their stands. As for the racing, there are times in NASCAR just like any other sports when a team -- or in this case a driver -- dominates. Jimmie Johnson did that Sunday leading 145 of 200 laps. The race did wind up, granted after a stretch of non-action, in an exciting finish and a dramatic winner in Mark Martin. Fuel mileage usually plays into the equation in Michigan which is just part of the game in the Irish Hills, an area of the country and track where I think NASCAR should continue to visit twice a year as it has for more than four decades. |  According to people that should know such things, there are ways to improve the racing at the track, with a reduction in horsepower the solution I hear most. So I'd like to see something like that tried before a race gets taken away from that particular track. Although I don't think most tracks really need two events every year, because it's in the backyard of the big three U.S. automakers, I've always felt Michigan was a track that should host two races (Daytona, Charlotte and Bristol are the others). There's a connection there -- or at least there was before financial strife ravaged the Big Three. Ultimately, though, there's the bottom line to consider and if the economic crunch continues to wreak havoc on attendance at the track, then eventually I could see it losing a race. But for at least a couple more years, I'm fine with it hosting two races. |
| COMMUNITY GUEST 'BERLYN3014': I wouldn't mind. I found it hard to concentrate on the race because it was so boring until the end. I would love to see that race moved somewhere that doesn't have a race. Maybe not even a set place. One year have that race at Nashville, another year at another track that doesn't have a race, make it where you cycle around to different tracks different years. That way more people that don't get to go see a race could and it would be great exposure for some of the tracks that you don't always hear about. Also, this would give NASCAR the indication of how well a race might go at certain tracks if at some point in time it decides to completely redo the schedule. | |
| Previous Feud of the Weeks: April 21 | April 28 | May 5 | May 12 | May 19 | May 26 | June 2 | June 9 | |
