As the 2008 holiday season continues to unfold, uncertainty about the 2009 economy, and with it the 2009 NASCAR racing season abounds.

With Dodge recently announcing plans to cut its 2009 motorsports budget, Dodge Motorsports director Mike Accavitti sat down to discuss some questions about the coming year.

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It'll be hard to top that victory that we had at Daytona, but we actually intend to try to do it again.

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-- MIKE ACCAVITTI

Q: Dodge has announced an extended closing of its manufacturing plants this winter, so in terms of general public perception, is there any connection between this and Dodge's participation in motorsports?

No, there's no connection. The extended plant closings, of course, are not good for business because we want to have our factories working at 100 percent-plus. So when you have factories down that means less revenue coming -- in so there's an indirect link between less revenue and everything that we do and everything that we spend.

But as far as our motorsports program and this extended break, there really isn't any direct link between the two of them.

Q: As the racing guy, is that maybe one of the tallest hurdles you've got to get over, in that you've got to defend motorsports -- either to the public or at a corporate level -- or on the corporate side, are they pretty much in tune with the value of motorsports?

Let me tell you, one of the things that I've been doing since I got back into the NASCAR thing a couple of years ago is to really try to dimension for senior management the benefit of our participation in motorsports. Generally it's a difficult thing and it hasn't been done well in the past, to really explain and analyze and provide data on why we should participate in motorsports.

It's too big of a leap to say a guy sees a car driving around the track and he wants to go into your dealership and buy one. So what we've set forth is to really try to put in some scientific measures to determine exactly how much influence does the fact that we participate in motorsports have on the purchase of our vehicles, and then how can we leverage that -- how can we leverage motorsports to drive more people into our showrooms to look at our great Dodge products.

So in our case, because we've put this effort in and tried to make things more scientific, during these hard economic times we're not asked to do anything differently. We have the information to analyze, we have the facts; the facts are what they are so we're able to spend appropriately.

Q: So regardless of the market conditions, do you have to market, and is NASCAR somewhere you feel you need to be involved?

What I always contend is that you need to tell people about your products. Some people just stumble into showrooms, yes -- but the majority of people need to know that you're out there and that you're making exciting, powerful, fuel-efficient vehicles -- and we use NASCAR as one of our platforms to do that exactly.

We advertise through a portfolio of media, meaning you'll see a television ad, you'll see a magazine ad, you'll see an Internet ad, you'll see us participating in NASCAR and you'll see us participating in rodeos. You'll see us touching people -- Dodge customers -- where they live and play.

And NASCAR is one of the areas a lot of our Dodge customers enjoy. And we participate in it.

Q: A 30- to 35-percent cut in budget numbers has been thrown out for 2009, so can you speak in general about that, and if you can, specifically where those cuts will come? The understanding is it won't come from the competition side?

The race teams are facing challenges as we all are facing challenges -- all of us in America. It's a difficult economic time and even in our own households, bills are going up and incomes either are going down or staying the same and that puts the pressure on. It means we either have to do things a little bit differently, like leave that thermostat turned down a little bit in the winter months and wear a sweater around the house.

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We might not like it, but we're going to get used to it. And the same kind of deal applies to our NASCAR operations. The teams, in and of themselves, are going through this because all of the sponsors -- not just the manufacturers -- but all the sponsors in the sport are really having to tighten their belts, which is going to put the squeeze on the teams.

So they're going to find out ways how to get more speed and more power out of less money -- or the same amount of money -- and they're good at that, and they're going to continue that. That's what's called efficiency.

As far as we're concerned, we need to get efficient in our [spending] as well. So what we're doing, we really don't want to impact that on-track performance -- we want to improve that on-track performance -- so we're really not going to take too many funds out of the budget that was going in that direction.

But where we're going to have to get smart and where we're going to have to throttle-back is in our at-track promotions and our promotions in general around the NASCAR sport, and in the tracks that we sponsor and things of that nature.

In good economic times, they provide value -- there's no question about it. But it's an issue of 'do we have the funds available to do this?' or 'are those funds better spent on some of our other priorities that we have as a company?' So that's kind of where we're at.

We're going to dial-down, it's a little over a 30 percent reduction in our [spending]. We still think we're spending the appropriate amount to give Gillett Evernham and Penske and Petty the support that they need to win on Sunday and Saturday night and we're just going to weather this storm and get through it.

Q: When you look at the big picture, when Chip Ganassi came to you and said his organization was considering a merger with Dale Earnhardt Incorporated that would involve a manufacturer change and cutting short their deal with you, was the timing good for that given the current economic issues?

You know, I like Chip a lot and I respect Chip as a businessman and as a friend, and the timing just really did work out well. We'd made the decision internally that we were going to honor our contracts, and we did have a contract with the Ganassi folks.

So when Chip approached us and we started this discussion about the things that he needed to do with his racing team, it just all worked out in everybody's favor. And it shows you, really, and it demonstrates to me just a beautiful example of how partners work together. It all worked out for everybody and it was a win-win-win.

It was a win for us because we did get to reduce that spend, it was a win for Chip because the merger is going to help the viability of his racing team and as far as I'm concerned it's a win for the other guys because they're picking up some great drivers -- Juan Montoya is an excellent driver.

Losing him [is tough]. He's also become a personal friend and I just hate to see good drivers leave for the other manufacturers, but I understand how it works in this sport and it's a win-win-win for everyone.

Q: When you look ahead at the 2009 Sprint Cup Series, is it possible to apportion where and how manufacturer support will be delivered?

The technical support is a little bit difficult to dollarize. The parts are easy because we know how much a front clip costs or a rear clip costs or an engine block or a head and we keep track of all that stuff. We can keep track of the manufacturer support and that's really quantifiable.

Technical support is a little bit different because we have a small nucleus of race engineers headed by a guy named Dave Bailey [senior manager, Dodge Motorsports Engineering] back in Auburn Hills [Mich.] and then [Sprint Cup program manager] Howard Comstock is just a top-drawer race engineer and he's our at-track guy.

But it's just difficult to say how much time they spend with one particular team or another solving their problems. It's not like we have a bunch of lawyers back here, time-stamping when questions come out and apportioning how much support is given to which teams. So it's a little difficult for me to quantify that, and I'm not even going to try because it would be a wild guess.

Q: Dodge announced in 2008 it would cut the support of its Truck Series program, but if someone elects to run a Ram pickup in 2009, what does that mean?

We're not going to sponsor one particular team. We had a great relationship with the Bobby Hamilton [Racing] folks and it was a tragedy when Bobby passed away, but Lori [Shuler Hamilton, his widow] did a fantastic job of keeping the ship going.

Race fans will receive a sneak peek of Speedweeks 2009 as well as the new racing season on Jan. 16-17 with the annual Preseason Thunder Fan Fests.

• Complete story

Speedweeks

Date	Event
Feb. 7	Budweiser Shootout
Feb. 8	Daytona 500 qualifying
Feb. 12	Gatorade Duel
Feb. 13	Truck Series race
Feb. 14	N'wide Series race
Feb. 15	Daytona 500

But the Truck Series was just something, and we made a decision some years ago, that we weren't really getting our money's worth out of that Truck Series. It's a good series for some folks to sponsor, but it just wasn't resonating with us. We've always been kind of the poor kid on the block and we had to watch the dimes that we spend in NASCAR, so we actually decided a couple years ago that we were not going to renew our relationships in the Truck Series when they expired at the end of [2008].

So that was another contribution to that 30 percent [cutback] figure that we were talking about. But we'll have some parts available for purchase in the warehouse, if people want to run Dodge vehicles.

If our contract engineers are there and if they're asked a question, they might give them a response or be able to help out with something; but we're not going to have any dedicated staff for that Truck Series.

Q: What will Dodge's presence be in the Nationwide Series?

Our Nationwide Series support really occurs through our Cup teams that have Nationwide Series cars. So Penske [Racing], ran a couple cars -- one for sure and sometimes two because they wanted to get Sam [Hornish] or Ryan [Newman] or Kurt [Busch] some track time -- and the Gillett Evernham team ran the 9 car and sometimes another when they put Chase [Miller] in there.

So we supported them through out Cup Series [program] but we don't really have any direct support. We used to help Rusty [Wallace] out with his [Busch Series] team, but that's another area where we kind of had to dial-back on, and really focus all of our horses on that Sprint Cup Series, so that's where we're at with that series.

Again, if those questions are asked, our guys are there -- they're in those shops anyway and helping their engineers anyway -- so there's availability for them. And we used to help out Chip [Ganassi] in the Nationwide Series.

Q: When you look at the 2009 Sprint Cup Series, when you look at GEM and Penske, where they've got what looks like three cars apiece and each organization won races last season, and with the Petty organization kind of up in the air right now, are you maybe in a better position with more quality versus quantity?

We've had faith in all of our teams. Chip's team was very capable of winning, with Juan winning at Sonoma a couple years back for his first NASCAR victory, which was super sweet. But we feel that we have, with the organizations that we have left, a very good representation on track.

You've got Kurt Busch, who's a former champion and picking up David Stremme now, along with Sam Hornish Jr., who's going to come around and be an excellent Cup driver.

Kasey [Kahne] is incredible. I've got pictures all around my house of me in Victory Lane with Kasey Kahne holding up multiple fingers, so we know that he can win. Elliott's [Sadler] a great guy and he had some really shining moments [in 2008] and with Reed [Sorenson] moving over to the GEM team that's really going to solidify that third team.

The Petty guys and the No. 43 -- there's just so much history there that we feel that with this portfolio we can provide entertainment to our Dodge fans, we can provide a good race and we can win some races this year in the upcoming season.

So we're very excited with where we're at. You know, ideally we'd all be trillionaires and we could buy whatever we want and all the race teams that we'd like to have, but with the portfolio that we have, we have a great representation of champions -- a lot of fans follow those drivers; they're capable of winning races and they're going to in 2009.

Q: With the way the 2008 season began at Daytona, do you feel added pressure in starting off in 2009?

You know, that Daytona 500 -- the 50th Daytona 500 -- you couldn't have asked for a sweeter victory. And just how it came down [because] it's an exciting enough race to watch as it is. But I was watching it with Bob Nardelli, our chairman, and we were speechless -- no, we were yelling like crazy, and then after the checkered flag dropped, we were speechless.

It was just such a fantastic way to start the season, and it wasn't just the one and the two [winner Newman and second place Busch] that got me excited -- it was the five, six, seven and eight right behind it that really demonstrated that the Dodge teams had it.

So we started out very optimistic, but then the wheels just came off the car. A lot of things go into winning a race and a lot of things go into losing a race and we all have a piece of it. We all understand that, and what I mean by that is the teams know their part and we know our part.

It's a moving train. It's easy to start finding stuff [that needs fixing] but it's difficult, of course, to correct when you've got another race in six days. So we feel this down time between the seasons is going to give us a chance to get dressed right and ready for next season.

It'll be hard to top that victory that we had at Daytona, but we actually intend to try to do it again. So we'll see how it goes, but we're very optimistic for 2009.