Busch alone won't reverse decline of Gibbs' No. 18 car

J.J. Yeley never really had a chance.

He couldn't have turned the opportunity down, of course. The prospect of driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, an organization that's won three championships in NASCAR's premier division, is a dream for anyone who makes a living short-tracking it around dusty ovals in anonymous little towns. But Yeley, like Tony Stewart a former open-wheeler who won all three major U.S. Auto Club titles in one season, was doomed to fail. And unless something changes on the No. 18 team, Kyle Busch might be, too.

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Before sponsorship costs cracked double-digit million dollars per season, the black and green car backed by Interstate Batteries won the Daytona 500 with Dale Jarrett and the championship with Bobby Labonte, achievements that spurred the Gibbs team on the road to greatness. But the same year Labonte won the title, something else happened -- UPS and Viagra jumped into NASCAR with massive sponsorship deals, raising the price of poker so high that many players were forced to abandon the game.

For teams that harbor legitimate hopes of making the year-end Chase for the Nextel Cup, sponsorships are now worth double what they were seven years ago. Sponsors have to fork out serious dough just to back a vehicle capable of winning races, and the pool of companies willing to do that has grown so shallow that they're fought over like the prettiest girl at the prom. Some sponsors decide the investment isn't worth the return, and drop out of the sport. Others soldier on, even if it means trying to play a level above their heads.

Gibbs' No. 18 car began to slide from the ranks of championship contention just as sponsorship dollars began to track an opposite course. Within three years, Labonte had dropped from a top-10 position in points to 24th. Yeley finished 29th last season as a rookie, and stands 21st entering Sunday's event at Michigan. Busch, a four-time winner on the Nextel Cup tour and by any standard an immense talent, steps into the car beginning next season.

And he'll need help from more than just Interstate Batteries to make it work. The company founded by Norm Miller was the first sponsor the Gibbs team ever had, pledging to back the coach's new NASCAR effort before a shop had been constructed or a car had been built. Without Miller's commitment, Joe Gibbs Racing as we know it likely would not exist today. The Gibbs team, a place where loyalty is a cornerstone, has never forgotten that. At the racetrack, the No. 18 truck is still the team's command hauler. The bond between Gibbs and Miller, two devout Christians and close friends, is so strong that there will always be a place for Interstate Batteries on one of the team's cars.

"You started Joe Gibbs Racing, really, with your commitment," Joe Gibbs, away at Washington Redskins training camp, told Miller in a taped statement played during the announcement Tuesday formally introducing Busch as the team's new driver. "We appreciate you making days like this possible."

It's a wonderful, noble sentiment, but today Interstate is a relatively small player in an arena where millions are tossed around like $5 bills. Miller's company employed 1,251 people and generated $754 million revenue in 2005, according to Hoover's market intelligence. Compare that to the other two primary car sponsors in the Gibbs stable -- FedEx, which employs 260,000 people and generates $32 billion in revenue, and The Home Depot, which employs 364,000 people and generates $90 billion in revenue. (Continued)