Fitz looking for changes in Nationwide Series' future

Armando Fitz has a great thing going in what is now known as the Nationwide Series.

A Nationwide Series car, a two-car East Series team and a four-car team in NASCAR Mexico is a lot to handle, and it's becoming a bona fide pipeline for Hispanic drivers of note to get their feet wet in NASCAR and developing a solid core of drivers here in the States.

What he doesn't have is peace of mind.

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He's got a solid single-car Nationwide team, but he's lining up every weekend against Sprint Cup-quality opposition, and that's a game of dollars that he can't hope to compete in.

Sponsors SuperCuts and Family Dollar are good, solid, dependable Nationwide Series backers who love the sport and have fun with it. But they don't print money like Cup sponsors do, and that's the crux of Fitz's argument.

"It's very tough," said Fitz, whose father-in-law is Cup team co-owner Felix Sabates. "I probably spend a third of what the [Cup teams] do. I can't afford to dedicate the engineering support and the resources that these guys have. We've gotten some help on the manufacturer side from Dodge, and nothing against them, but they put their resources into the Cup side. It's just hard."

Specifically, it's not the satellite Nationwide Series the Cup teams have that irks Fitz; it's racing against the Cup drivers.

Coming off a second-place finish by Mike Bliss at Memphis, Bliss was taken out by a Cup driver in the next race -- on the fourth lap.

"We got taken out by a Cup guy," Fitz fumed. "They're racing for wins and the cash. I'm sitting there in a dog fight to try to finish as close as I can to fifth in the championship, because that's as high as I realistically could get, and we got taken out by a Cup guy and that pretty much ended that.

"It's hard on my guys. We were just coming off a second-place finish ... to get taken out at Lap 4 because of a little bit of impatience..."

Consider what Fitz has done since he purchased his father-in-law's Busch Series operation at the end of the 2000 season. He signed SuperCuts, one of the nation's leading franchised hair salons, as a sponsor for the 2002 season and has steadily built that team into a series stalwart.

"I couldn't ask for a better sponsor than SuperCuts," Fitz said. "When we finished second at Memphis earlier this year, that was their second runner-up finish since they came on board. They love the sport and have been just great partners in this.

"SuperCuts has been incredible, it's a great place for them. Family Dollar has been with us for a couple years on a limited basis and we're trying to get them to grow their support."

So when he talks about being at a disadvantage to the larger, better-funded Cup teams, you need to take him at his word.

"For the individual Busch teams -- us, Brewco, Braun, CJM, there's a few of us still left -- It'll be difficult, but what are you going to do? The only other option is to go ahead and get out."

In the meantime, he began looking at the growing Hispanic market and saw potential with the NASCAR Mexico series.

"In 2005, we had three Busch programs and it was too much," Fitz said. "When I scaled back in 2006 to just the one team, I lost a Busch program with Carlos Contreras. I'm Hispanic, I strongly believe there's a tremendous amount of talent out there, and if they're given an opportunity, we could get some new drivers in the series." (Continued)