AVONDALE, Ariz. -- On Friday at otherwise sunny Phoenix International Raceway, the bad news hit harder than probably everyplace else in America but Detroit.

As NASCAR prepared to run a full slate of events in the Craftsman Truck Series, the Nationwide Series and the Sprint Cup Series at PIR, word filtered through the garage of the staggering losses announced by auto manufacturer General Motors -- one of the sport's biggest financial backers.

Ganassi-DEI merge?

Chip Ganassi Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc. have entered discussions that could lead to a merger between the two organizations.

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The American automaker announced third-quarter losses totaling $4.2 billion, bringing its total losses in the last three years to $50 billion. Worse yet, one estimate had GM being drained of all but $20 billion of its cash reserves -- when it needs roughly $12 billion per month to continue operating.

Car sales for the quarter were the worst they've been since World War II, according to analysts. And yes, NASCAR expects -- and even already is experiencing -- an adverse trickle-down effect in the sport where it currently costs $20 million or more to field a top-notch, competitive team for one Sprint Cup season.

"My brother was in the car business. He ran a Chevy store. And I've always been around dealerships. So I'm plenty aware of a lot of owners and people that are in the car business. Times are tough," said Clint Bowyer, who drives the No. 07 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing.

"Everybody is in lockdown mode. You hear all the news and how bad everything is, and you're not going to go out and buy a new car. You're not going to go out to dinner. Go out to a restaurant on a Tuesday night and you'll see. You feel it everywhere. Go out to a movie theater. Go anywhere. Business is down everywhere. And as long as people keep reading and hearing about how bad it is, they're going to go on lockdown. It seems like it's that way.

"Hopefully it'll turn around soon, and we'll all be all right. But you know, when a company as big as Chevrolet/GM announces something like that, it's an eye-opener for everybody."

It's an eye-opener in the garage area, where uncertainty about the future is running rampant in every nook and cranny of seemingly every team's stall. Noting that fewer than 30 teams have lined up full-time primary sponsorship for next season in the Sprint Cup Series, team owner Richard Childress said times undoubtedly are changing.

As rumors of talks and potential mergers between such teams as Chip Ganassi Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc., continue to simmer, the story seems to be as much about how even the major players in such scenarios seem uncertain about what is going to happen as anything else. It's getting late in the game for teams to consider merging for next season, considering this season will come to an end one week from Sunday at Homestead.

"I've got a lot of concerns about a lot of things in this sport today. And not only in our sport, but in our whole world with the economy," said Childress, who actually will expand from three Sprint Cup cars to four next season with RCR. "I'm very bullish on NASCAR because we have 75 million race fans, and they're not going to disappear. So I think there's a possibility that our sport will be just as strong someday.

"Everybody's suffering with the downturn in money. But I feel very good about it for the long run. At DEI, hopefully some of the things they're working on will come to pass, and any way I can help them, I'm in there trying to help them."

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who drives the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, said he has heard rumors that as many as 750 NASCAR employees across the top three series will lose their jobs as of a week from Monday, one day after the season finale at Homestead. And he believes the rumors are true.

"I think everybody here gets a sense of that. And I don't think it's entirely limited to the race teams, either," Earnhardt said. "I think it's going to echo in every facet of the race weekend, the series itself over the course of the entire year. ... it's going to affect how many people the networks bring in to put the show on every week, everything.

"There were a lot of teams that made a lot of layoffs earlier in the season, three or four months ago. Those were really, really substantial -- and there's probably a whole lot more to come after Homestead. It's unfortunate for the sport."

Former driving champion Rusty Wallace, now a race analyst on television broadcasts, said that he believes NASCAR simply has grown "too big" in terms of the layers of people teams employ and the equipment now deemed necessary to run a competitive race team.

"We've just overall got too many people at these racetracks," Wallace said. "Andy Petree, my colleague up [in the broadcasting booth], he suggested a roster. When you come in, you've got these 18 guys and they've each got a job. Nowadays, teams bring a whole pile of people to the track -- and then they bring a whole 'nother pile to pit the car.

"We used to put the tires and the wheels in the truck and go to the track. Nowadays, we're spending a couple hundred thousand a year to haul our pit boxes and our wheels to the track. There are all these crazy things that haven't happened in the past."

Wallace has joked in the past that he sometimes visits the Penske Racing shop and can't believe how many more people are employed there now as opposed to when he drove for the organization a scant three years ago.

"I don't know what the hell they do. I swear I still don't. I go up there and see 'em all sitting there in front of a pile of computer banks and I go, 'What are y'all doin'?' Wallace said. "And they're like, 'Well, we're just doin' what we're supposed to be doin.'

"Hey, you can't fault anybody. It just got too big. The costs got out of control, and now it's coming to a head because of this economy. The economy is what is making everybody go, 'Oh, my God.' Because people are losing sponsors, and they're not going to be putting out big numbers anymore. That's what's got everybody freaked out and talking about mergers and layoffs and everything else."

It is leaving many teams -- and some talented drivers -- in a state of perplexed limbo. Driver Regan Smith, for instance, has been one of the top rookies in the Sprint Cup Series this season while driving the No. 01 Chevy for DEI; but he literally has no idea where or what he'll be driving next season.

"I think there's a lot of concern and curiosity on my part, just because that's what I'm going to be doing next year one way or another," Smith said. "I still don't know where I'm going to be, if I'm going to be back at DEI or not, if it's going to be a Ganassi team, or what's going to happen with it. There are all kinds of rumors out there. Unfortunately, I wish I could sit here and say, 'yeah, I've got a good idea of what we're doing,' but I don't have a clue.

"I'm learning just like everybody else is, through the media and the different Internet sites and stuff like that, which isn't necessarily a good feeling, to have to learn your future on the computer. I've had a lot of good talks with other teams and feel confident that I'll be in one of those seats that are open next year. This is the series I want to be in; this is the series I feel like I need to be in. If you sit down and look at the 35 best drivers out there, I think I'm one of them. You'd think that would lead me to a ride next year, and of course, the second year is always better for a rookie. We'll just have to wait and see.

"This year is different from any other year in the past from the standpoint that it's taken longer for this stuff to all work out. I don't think we've ever been in Phoenix without knowing who the 43 Cup drivers for the following year are going to be. I don't think we've ever been here and been in this situation. We're kind of in that situation, and it's probably affecting what's happening in the Nationwide silly season and the Truck silly season, because it's always a trickle-down factor. Hopefully those guys will get it all worked out soon, and all of us will know."

Meanwhile, the numbing news out of Detroit about GM/Chevrolet on Friday seemed to contribute to further turmoil and uncertainty in the already chaotic NASCAR circles.

"Everybody knows that's not good," Earnhardt said. "Listen, I do what I'm supposed to do. I do my job. I'm proud to do the best that I can to help sell cars for 'em on Mondays. And I hope they've got the right people in the right places to turn it around and to stop the bleeding. That's all you can hope for.

"It's going to really affect everything. It's tender times, you know?"