Morgan-McClure shows hardships of small teams

NASCAR racing, as in most sports, is cyclical in nature. One minute you're on top of the world, and the next you're struggling just to keep the doors open.

Such is the case with Morgan-McClure Motorsports, which closed its doors last week, laid off 28 employees and continued to search for the money it will take to get the No. 4 Chevrolet out of the shop and back on the track.

"It's been a good 25 years," team manager and co-owner Larry McClure said after Friday's announcement. "Circumstances made us take a step back."

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State Water Heaters, a 10-race primary sponsor last season, jumped to the No. 66 of Scott Riggs at the end of the 2007 season, and driver Ward Burton is off searching for his own ride. Crew chief Chris Carrier will guide Sam Hornish Jr. on his rookie NASCAR voyage this year.

Those are some of the circumstances that caused one of NASCAR's stalwart teams to take that step back. The last Virginia-based team in the sport -- the Wood Brothers joined with Tad Geshickter and moved to the Charlotte area a couple of years ago -- MMM faced the fact that the talent and the money in the sport were located three hours southeast of its Abingdon, Va., base in Charlotte.

All is not lost, as the team is working with veteran driver Mike Wallace for a Daytona run should sponsorship be found, and McClure said that if sufficient funding could be obtained, the team would have cars ready for the 50th running of the Daytona 500.

"We are basically closing the doors on 25 years of NASCAR racing if we don't find a sponsor," team president Tim Morgan said on Saturday. "We have been searching for sponsorship for months and decided that if nothing materialized, we would have to cancel testing and release most of our employees.

"We will continue our marketing efforts and still try to put something together but we cannot continue the way we are today."

Losing the primary sponsor, driver and crew chief in the span of several weeks hit the team hard, and McClure was left wondering what happened.

"This is a very hard day for me," he said. "I've had a lot of fun racing and it's just hard to believe it might come to this. I would like to say thanks to all our fans that have remained loyal through all these years and to thank everyone who has ever supported us in any way, whether it be through this race team or our dealerships. We are still the best bargain in NASCAR if we could just find the right sponsor.

"It feels like a hurricane. The way NASCAR has changed, I don't know if it has been good or not."

In the early-to-mid-1990s, Morgan-McClure was a force, with drivers Ernie Irvan and Sterling Marlin. The team won the 1991 Daytona 500 with Irvan, and scored back-to-back Daytona triumphs with Marlin in 1994 and 1995.

Kodak was the sponsor then, and engine builder Runt Pittman made arguably the best restrictor-plate power in the garage. Tony Glover was the crew chief, and he and Marlin earned a third-place points finish behind champion Jeff Gordon in 1995.

For the past few years, MMM has struggled to replace Kodak, the longtime backer which left its primary role with the team for Penske Racing South. As a small-market team with no tie-in to a larger operation, options began dwindling quickly.

There are options left to the team even now, McClure said, including having a driver bring sponsorship or bringing in an investor, which has been a trend among even larger NASCAR teams over the past year or two.

Jack Roush, Ray Evernham and Michael Waltrip have all gone the investor route, which infuses capital into the team and allows the racing people to focus on racing rather than chasing dollars.

Several other smaller teams are facing the same crunch that MMM found itself unable to avoid on Friday. Sponsors tend to gravitate toward larger teams with guaranteed starting spots in hopes of a larger return on investment. The No. 4 car made 16 starts last season. In its 25 years, Morgan-McClure amassed 14 victories, 63 top-five and 146 top-10 finishes and 13 poles.

McClure was adamant that the team was not going to fund itself any longer. Open-wheel drivers have been doing that for years, and with the influx of open-wheelers, that might be the team's best option.

"We've got capable people here for the crew chief role ... the biggest thing we need are sponsorship dollars," McClure told the Bristol Herald Courier. "We've been working on a deal with one of the bigger multi-car teams where we could be a satellite team and share some information. That deal is on the table if we get our sponsorship stuff put together.

"We're just going to see how much money we get in the door. We're not going to race on our own money anymore."