How's the economy doing? The racecars tell the story (cont'd)

To those in the trenches, trying to find sponsorship is an exercise in patience. Max Jones, co-owner of Yates Racing, is the man tasked with finding companies willing to back Gilliland's No. 38 car and Kvapil's No. 28. Right now, he's still optimistic -- he has five agencies hunting down sponsorship leads for him, he's held several meetings with potential sponsors, and the feedback he's getting isn't entirely negative. But Yates is still "a ways" from locking up a full-season primary, he said, and in this economic environment companies aren't keen on the idea of signing a multi-year deal.

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"I've never been in the business of beating the pavement to find money, but I've been in the sport, and I know how hard it is to find money," said Jones, who co-owns the team with Doug Yates. "From where I'm sitting, I don't believe it's a lot different than it's ever been. There was a time when people were wondering if NASCAR was a good value or not, and we've gotten through that. Everything's a cycle, but it's always hard. It's just as hard to find money as it is to make your car turn in the corner. You've just got to work really hard at it."

The big concern he senses right now is the uncertainty -- will there be a recession, and how bad might it be? Just like consumers, corporations begin pinching pennies when economic indicators start to point south. When he meets with potential sponsors, Jones said, he doesn't sense the gloom and doom he reads in the newspaper and on the Internet. The executives he talks to are not averse to dialogue. They're not to the point of slashing marketing budgets like they were in the aftermath of 2001. But they're also not signing on the dotted line, either.

"They're consciously watching what they spend, no different than you and I are," said Jones, whose team has even started a Web site, sponsoryates.com, in an attempt to generate interest. "But they still have to do business. They still have to advertise, they still have to market. This is one of the things they still believe strongly in, or they wouldn't be having the meetings."

Those who are strongest now are the same who were strongest in 2001 -- teams that can enhance the value of a sponsor's investment through performance, and sponsors that see racing as not just a part of their overall marketing strategy, but the linchpin of it. Companies like Lowe's and Home Depot and even Yates' old sponsor, UPS, stick it out through tough economic times because NASCAR has become a part of their very identities. But in some ways this is an atmosphere that teams and sponsors helped create, as organizations pushed the price of competition upward and corporations opened their wallets to pay for it. Before the 2001 slowdown, sponsorship in NASCAR was one expensive game of "can you top this," a mentality that still exists to a point, even though there aren't as many players who can afford to buy in.

One day the cycle will reverse itself, and the housing market will improve, the mortgage crisis will ease, and the numbers on Wall Street will start to climb consistently northward again. When that happens, 43 cars will converge on Daytona with shiny corporate logos painted on their hoods. But to get there teams must persevere through the current economic climate, the severity of which is clearly evident with one glance out on the track.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.