Roush, Evernham see need for more money

Money makes NASCAR's world go 'round, and to go faster and faster means you have to have more money.

If you believe Jack Roush and Ray Evernham, the money-go-round just hit fourth gear.

Both team owners, speaking last week at the annual Lowe's Motor Speedway Media Tour, made references to the fact that with Toyota now in the mix and the new Car of Tomorrow being phased in, there's not as much of that necessary fuel as is needed to remain competitive.

"If you're not committed and constantly focused as a team looking at the future -- six, 12 months, even years ahead to gain that advantage -- you're going to be left behind," Evernham said. "At Evernham Motorsports we're starting to see the investment we made in people, engineering and technology pay off.

"We've made a significant investment in that technology. Every year that technology budget doesn't go up by hundreds of thousands, sometimes it goes up by millions. When you look across the board, most big companies spend 2-3 percent on research and development. That tells you what direction racing is going."

Translation: Evernham sees the need for more money, and he'll even take a partner to get it beyond what Dodge is willing to pay. After all, he has 330 employees who depend on him for a paycheck.

Dodge, a division of DaimlerChrysler, is fully aware of the challenge that Toyota presents from a financial standpoint, having competed on a daily basis for quite some time.

It doesn't frighten it, according to Mike Accavitti, director of Dodge Motorsports Operations.

"We've been fighting with Toyota in the marketplace for 30 years," he said. "It's not new to me. I've been with our company for a long time, and it's been a harsh reality that we've had to deal with the financial strengths of a lot of manufacturers.

"Toyota right now is in the catbird seat. I've been with Chrysler for 30 years this month and our corporate philosophy has always been if we want to get in a money-burning contest we're going to lose every time.

"We never have enough money as the other guys. I hate to use the analogy, but iwe have to work smarter. We have to figure out a way in our business every day on how to outmaneuver the competition. That's what's going to have to happen with the race teams. It can no longer be we'll just throw more money at the problem and it'll go away.

"The money is going to be fixed, and the teams are just going to have to figure out how to make the cars go faster and how to employ technologies to achieve better results with the same resources. Here again, this is what we do every day in the car business."

OK, so why is Jack Roush talking with the Fenway Sports Group for added capital?

Again, it's Toyota and the COT.

"Anticipating the challenges that Toyota was gonna bring with regard to the financial structure -- the way the business works -- I think that things will stabilize and neutralize over a period of time," Roush said. "NASCAR will not let things stay out of whack for very long. They'll find ways to diminish the effect of money that is spent as time goes on, but if they do take an initiative and if it is something that hasn't been anticipated or the extent to which they do it may be beyond expectation, it's gonna take some time for things to adjust.

"The one thing about, of course, the partner we're talking to is the Fenway Sports Group and John Henry, and they've got millions of sports fans in the Northeast that are not a hotbed for NASCAR interest. We've got the opportunity to attract the attention now for our sponsors and for our drivers and, for that matter, for all of NASCAR ... a lot more energy to the things we're doing.

"That could offset some of the financial energy that a company like Toyota could bring as they bring the resources that they have not garnered from the sport, but from the success of their automobile business elsewhere."

It's more a question of getting ahead of the game, in Roush's mind. Plus, Boston Red Sox owner Henry is no stranger to balancing the corporate checkbook, as it were.

"John Henry is a great guy." Roush said. "Of course, anybody that has watched the Red Sox has been, I think, impressed with their tenacity and the way they've dealt with their frustration over a period of time and they have eventually prevailed. Well, he's behind that. He understands how hard it is. How hard you have to try to do something that's really difficult in sport and he's real unique in that regard.

"For me to have a chance to be able to bounce the ideas that we'd have and the strategies we might be considering -- to bounce them off Greg [Biffle] and Matt [Kenseth] and Carl [Edwards] and Jamie [McMurray] and everybody else, that's super to do that, but to have somebody else that has got more skin in the game in terms of their financial interest, and to get their perspective, is gonna be comforting to me.

"Sometimes I'm just not sure what to do. You ask the business managers and the financial people and do a survey of the sponsors and it's just not clear, and to have another guy I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with that can give me his perspective from another point of view will be great fun."

Two different owners, one from the old school and one from the new, have reached the same conclusion: With all that's changing in NASCAR, you need dollars to find sense.

Whether it's Toyota or the Car of Tomorrow or ever-increasing people costs -- the combined number of employees for the top-six NASCAR organizations would make up a fair-sized city -- the need for more money is the common denominator.