JOLIET, Ill. -- In an effort to build his race team into a contender, Bobby Ginn hired 75 new employees after taking ownership of the entity formerly known as MB2 Motorsports. The move seemed to pay off in his very first race, when Mark Martin nearly won the Daytona 500.

But the growth came too quickly. As the season has worn on and sponsorship for the three-car team has failed to materialize, Ginn Racing has been forced to make difficult decisions. The organization has shut down its Busch program and laid off some employees as part of an ongoing restructuring that it hopes will make it stronger in the future.

"Unfortunately we did what we did a couple of weeks ago, and basically that was a derivative of, we grew so fast, and we just had to reevaluate where we were at people-wise," team CEO Jay Frye said Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway. "Again, even at that point, we didn't know what we were going to do. Did we have enough, not enough? We didn't know where we were at. It became apparent we had too many [people]."

Ginn, a Florida developer who purchased controlling interest in the team late last year, has poured resources into the organization. Besides hiring new employees, he also unveiled plans to expand the race shop, bought two jet airplanes to facilitate travel, and purchased a seven-post shaker rig, a $2 million piece of equipment that simulates setups. Mid-tier teams like Ginn typically can't afford them, and have to rent time on those owned by larger organizations.

But a lack of sponsorship has taken its toll. Only one of Ginn's Nextel Cup cars, the one split by Martin and Regan Smith, has backing for the full season. The plans for next year are for three cars: Martin and a yet-to-be announced driver in the No. 01, Smith in the No. 14, and Joe Nemechek in the No. 13. But only one of those vehicles -- Martin's U.S. Army car -- has sponsorship in place for 2008.

"The core group here is still here and will continue to be here," Martin said. "The 01 is sponsored for '08 and the driver lineup is set for '08 and the crew chief is set for '08 and I know the team members are the same ones who have been involved at that place for a long time. Don't forget this is the little team that could, and I expect it to get back to that. Trying to go through explosive expansion is a really tough thing to do, and for various reasons, [Ginn isn't] being as successful at expanding as quickly as they had hoped. Getting back to that core group and getting stronger, it's exciting for me in that respect."

With the Busch team shut down -- right now, there are no plans to revive it -- Smith is losing out on valuable seat time. Frye said the team wants to get Smith in more Cup races, other than those he's splitting with Martin in the No. 01 car. How? "We're working through that, too," said Frye, also a minority owner of the team. "He's got to race every week, too." (Continued)