New York has no shortage of economic indicators

NEW YORK -- The house of worship across the street from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the nerve center for NASCAR's Champions Week, says it all. A poster outside of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal, a dazzling Byzantine edifice off Park Avenue, shows a stock trader holding his head after what can only be another volatile day in the financial markets. "A church for these times," the caption reads. And goodness, what times these are.

This is a very different city from the one that NASCAR last visited a scant three months ago, when the trees were still leafy and the birds were still chirping and the markets had yet to begin their dizzying dive. The Manhattan that Kyle Busch toured as the championship points leader on Chase media day, the Wednesday before the playoff opener at New Hampshire International Speedway, had yet to be wracked by the ongoing financial meltdown. The Manhattan that Jimmie Johnson is touring this week as three-time champion shows visible scars of that upheaval.

There are the snippets of conversation picked up just walking down the street, men in suits smoking cigarettes talking about buyouts and layoffs and who might end up where. There's the great deal of public consternation over Citigroup, a bank which last week received $20 billion in government aid, sponsoring the name of the New York Mets' new ballpark. There are the buildings with new names and new owners, like the former Lehman Brothers headquarters in Times Square, its video screens now displaying the blue and white colors of Barclays. There are the tickers, omnipresent in the financial district, scrolling with numbers that rise and fall with the unpredictability of a car going airborne at Talladega Superspeedway.

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Even the year-end celebration that is Champions Week seems -- by design or coincidence, it's hard to tell -- a little more subdued. There's no "Victory Lap," the parade of show cars that's traversed Midtown in each of the last four years. Ford and Chevrolet, part of a U.S. auto industry on the verge of bankruptcy, have canceled engagements that typically coincide with the awards banquet. NASCAR's public relations department didn't bring quite as many people up from Daytona Beach. The light pole banners around Manhattan aren't touting Champions Week, but the upcoming Heisman Trophy presentation. And while sponsors like Ford and Aflac are hosting events and fan festivals, the industry doesn't seem to be taking as large a bite out of the Big Apple as it usually attempts to do.

"It almost feels, with what's going on in the world, that we need to shrink it a little bit," said now eight-time champion car owner Rick Hendrick. "The way everything's going, people are hurting, it's widespread with the economy. It's almost like it's hard to have a party in the midst of so much uncertainty. You want to celebrate, but I think throttling back a little is not a bad idea." (Continued)