In tough economy, Gordon would consider salary cut (cont'd)

Sponsors, clearly, are critical to the successful operation of a top-echelon Cup team. Gordon acknowledged Friday that his annual salary is roughly a third of the No. 24 team's annual budget. It takes somewhere near $30 million to operate a championship-caliber team for a year. Do the math.

Gordon is willing to sacrifice salary in lieu of sacrificing performance, if it comes to that.

David Caraviello

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"The way I look at is that I always say to [team owner] Rick Hendrick, 'I'll do whatever it takes for us to have the best team we can possibly have,' Gordon said. "If that means take part of my salary to keep certain people on or to hire certain people, I'll do it."

Gordon doesn't apologize for the lifestyle he has earned, but he does admit to pangs of guilt dating to his first purchase of an expensive motor home, an accessory that's almost a requirement in the Cup garage.

"It's stupid what we spend on motor homes and planes and all this," he said. "Do we need that? No. But things have been good for us. The sport's been good. I'm living this way because things have been very good. Now, obviously, we're having to cut back, and I have to cut back, too. ...

"If me and Rick Hendrick sit down and we talk about the position that we're in -- obviously I'm not the only one -- but I would be open to it. Listen, I never [got into] this to make millions of dollars. I never dreamed in a million years I was going to make this kind of money. This is ridiculous.

"But, at the same time, I've put myself in a financial position because I know my contract, that I have to make sure I take care of those things and I don't just find myself in debt and going to court trying to cover my debt. Would it happen immediately? Maybe not. But could it happen over time? Absolutely."

Kevin Harvick, who owns teams in NASCAR's Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series, says he went to his Cup owner, Richard Childress, to express his willingness to sacrifice.

"I brought it up," Harvick said. "From a driver's standpoint, the drivers have been on top of the world for the past several years, because there haven't been enough [marquee] drivers to go around, and teams have been doing whatever they had to do to get the drivers. The owners are back in charge, in my opinion."

Harvick knows he's not alone in placing performance issues above personal gain.

"I don't think I'm the only one that would be in that category," he said. "I think 90 percent of the drivers are business-savvy enough, unlike other sports, to understand from a business standpoint where the world is, and sometimes you've got to tighten the belt and you've got to make sure everything is distributed so that everybody survives.

"If it's all about you, sometimes you get left on the boat."