If NASCAR listed its five most troubling conundrums, as it sits in the middle of the first third of its 2009 racing season, "start and park" cars and trucks would probably be No. 5 on the list.

Then again, it might not even register at all. But it doesn't mean the situation, which basically involves a vehicle taking the green flag to start the race, running a minimal number of laps and then pulling into the garage area, isn't worth examining, and possibly clarifying.

NASCAR has been an extremely lucrative industry that in many ways has taken advantage of a lot of technical advances but at the same time, in many ways, has stayed true to its roots.

While NASCAR's new car is a truly modern concept, at its core it involves much of the same technology employed when legends Richard Petty and David Pearson began their careers, never mind 10-15 years later when they were thriving. The guts of NASCAR's other national tours, the Nationwide and Camping World Truck series, are virtually the same.

The money surrounding the sport, on the other hand, has drastically grown, from team owners to track operators to sponsors.

And purse figures have risen. The nature of the sport means that in every element, be it owners, drivers or mechanics, there are always people looking to climb the ladder. But in recent years, some owners seem to have built a business model around doing the bare minimum to harvest some purse money.

When it comes to start-and-park, the bottom line appears to be that it's not a major issue to NASCAR, which is usually keenly tuned to the public's perception of the sport.

"NASCAR doesn't perceive this to be an issue," a statement released this week by the sanctioning body said. "It doesn't impact the quality of competition whatsoever. NASCAR has always been about teams having the opportunity to participate in our sport; some teams might not have the full complement of resources to compete at the same level as others, but it's all about having an opportunity."

Virtually to a man, the owners who seem to be in the middle of the situation see it in the same way, as racers. And NASCAR said it has had no conversations with owners specific to what their intentions are once they qualify for races.

"NASCAR has regular dialogue with all of the team owners across all three of its national series about a variety of different things that are taking place within the garage area," NASCAR said in its general statement.

Staying in line with its take that the situation is not one of concern, NASCAR said it would not monitor any closer the reasons teams give for the their cars' dropping out of races, which range from a variety of mechanical reasons such as "engine," "transmission" and "rear end" to more nebulous causes including "handling," "vibration" or "electrical."

"NASCAR looks at each situation on an individual basis," its statement said, "but at this time, does not consider this to be an issue."

Money for nothing

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Brian Keselowski has one top-20 finish in 2009.

At first glance, it appears there's a lot of money to be made in NASCAR. And if it didn't take a pretty sizeable initial investment, that might be the case.

In 2008, if a team made every Sprint Cup Series race and finished in the least-paid position, which ranged from 39th to 43rd, with an average of 41.5, it would have made $2,880,640.

In NASCAR's secondary series, the money available drops radically. In 2008, if a team made every Nationwide Series race and finished in the least-paid position, which ranged from 38th to 43rd, with an average of 42.31, it would have made $659,048.

In 2008, 14 of the 25 Truck Series' starting fields were short, with anywhere from 31 to 35 trucks starting races that had a prescribed 36-truck field.

Last season, if a team made every Truck Series race and finished in the least-paid position, which was always last but ranged from 31st to 36th, depending on how short each of the short fields were, with an average of 34.8, it would have made $223,986.

But racing in NASCAR's national tours is only partly about the money. Far more critical are the points assigned to each finishing position, and some events that took place in the most recent Nationwide Series race at Nashville Superspeedway proved this.

This season, K-Automotive Motorsports has fielded two Dodge Chargers in every event for family member Brian Keselowski and NASCAR veteran Dennis Setzer. At Nashville, Keselowski acknowledged on the ESPN coverage of qualifying that the team's primary car, the No. 26, needed to be in the top 30 in owners' points that would guarantee it a starting position each week, while the team's second car, the No. 96, was just a "money maker," or a start and park car.

The team qualified both cars at Nashville, the fourth time this season they've accomplished that, but for the second consecutive week they executed a driver swap, putting the more experienced Setzer in the 26 car. Keselowski ran 32 laps and parked due to "handling," winning $13,825 and earning 34 points.

Setzer took the checkered flag in the event one lap down in 20th. For putting 92 more laps of wear on the equipment, Setzer won only $1,950 more than Keselowski, but the 69 more points he gained, which pulled K-Automotive's No. 26 within 54 points of 30th in the owners' standings despite having missed two races, were priceless.

Offsetting what can be made in the sport is what it actually takes to participate, and the numbers are somewhat staggering.

At Texas, a team owner operating in the mid-range of the Cup garage area said, in confidence, that to start up a reasonably competitive team would take a minimum of $18 to $19 million, citing $3.5-4 million for an engine lease program and a personnel budget in the range of $5 million for a staff that would be much less than a fifth the size of an operation such as Hendrick Motorsports.

At $3,630 per event, a season's worth of entry fees in the Cup Series is $130,680. At $1,200 per event, a season's worth of entry fees in the Nationwide Series is $42,000. At $1,000 per event, a season's worth of entry fees in the Truck Series is $25,000.

License fees are another sizeable chunk of annual costs. A startup Cup team owner who came to Daytona with fewer than 10 people in his organization said he paid $52,000 for owner and crew licenses for himself and his initial group.

Another owner estimated the annual "nut" for entry fees and licenses for a moderately sized Cup operation in the range of a quarter of a million dollars.

Any owner would peg their three highest costs as labor, engines and tires; with personnel costs always leading the way.

But in terms of being competitive, tires are one of the leading loss items, as they cost $1,850 per set, regardless of which series they're earmarked.

A startup owner who fielded cars in both the Cup and Nationwide series at Daytona's Speedweeks 2009 said he purchased 13 sets of tires, which cost $24,050. He didn't make either race, thus was paid nothing.

Not in my Cup Series

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Todd Bodine tallied a little more than $69,000 for three laps of Cup Series work at Martinsville.

In 2008, the "start and park" phenomenon didn't exist in the Cup Series, at least per a statistical analysis. It may not exist, in its starkest form, to this day.

In the 36 races, the least-paid car was running a third of the time, or in 12 events. Thirteen additional times, the least-paid car was taken out of the event in an accident, which is certainly not an item on a start-and-park owner's agenda. Trying that hard is usually the realm of pure racers.

In 2008, the least-paid car completed 69 percent of the total laps available in the 36 events, which is hardly the case when compared against the Nationwide and Truck series, where the practice of starting and parking ran rampant, very often among teams' second and third cars and trucks and backup vehicles.

In the 2008 Nationwide Series, the least-paid cars ran only 3 percent of the total available laps and, not coincidentally, none of the least-paid cars was running at the end of an event.

Ditto in the Truck Series, where the least-paid trucks ran only 9 percent of the total available laps and again, none of them was running at the finish.

At any given event, the disparity in equipment wielded by the sport's super teams and those struggling to gain a foothold is stark, but NASCAR said it has no written rules that would preclude any team from starting a race without having the ability to finish, including providing either the crew or equipment with which to service their car or truck during pit stops.

"There is no rule that stipulates the minimum size of pit crew a team must have or what type of equipment they must have to start a race," NASCAR said in its statement. "Per the rule book, a maximum of seven pit-crew members are permitted over the wall while servicing a car in both the NASCAR Sprint Cup and NASCAR Nationwide Series. A maximum of five pit-crew members are permitted over the wall while servicing a truck in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series."

But while everything seems to be stacked against new owners coming into the sport, NASCAR's open policy has created opportunities for more new owners than in any recent campaign; and the universal feeling in the Cup Series is that what would seem like simply taking advantage in another series is taking advantage of that opportunity.

Creating, and taking, chances

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Terry Cook has failed to complete more than 20 laps in any of the five starts he has made.

Phil Parsons, who won the first Busch Series race held at Bristol Motor Speedway in the spring of 1982, also the series' inaugural season, was one of the first in the most recent era to field cars that would be considered "field fillers."

Parsons said he began thinking about providing what amounted to extra cars for the Nationwide Series in 2007, when there began a serious concern about the health of the series for 2008. In fact, only 42 cars started the second race of the 2008 season, at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, including two fielded by MSRP Motorsports, the team Parsons operates with partner Randy Humphrey.

"Honest to goodness, that whole program started out as a service, to keep the Nationwide Series from having short fields," Parsons said. "Other people looked at it and it evolved and by the end of last season, we were back to having 50 cars at the race track."

In that vein, one thing NASCAR did dispel is the misconception that there is language in the current TV contracts for the three national tours that demands 43-car fields in Cup and Nationwide, and a 36-truck field in the Truck Series, with penalties resulting if full fields aren't provided.

"It is NASCAR's responsibility to have a reasonable field of cars for each of its events," NASCAR said in a statement. "However, there is no language in the TV contracts that demands what the size of the fields must be."

Whatever the reality is, the fact last season and even in the beginning of 2009, it appears that as much as 25 percent of each Nationwide and Truck field is comprised of start and park vehicles. But there's not much simple about it.

In 2008, MSRP fielded two cars at all 35 Nationwide races. Its No. 90 car made 89 percent of the events, 31 of 35, but was only sponsored twice. Seven drivers raced the cars, which won $643,678 in purse money. The team finished 32nd in owners' points.

Its No. 91 car made one fewer race, 86 percent of its attempts and never carried sponsorship signage. Seven drivers raced that car, with Todd Bodine and Terry Cook crossing over for at least one event in each number. It won $582,048 -- giving the team a total of $1,225,726 in purse winnings -- and it ended up 33rd in owners' points. And it didn't make money.

"It's not easy," Parsons said. "Other people had the same idea, they looked at what we were doing but it's not really as lucrative as they thought. They thought [in the Nationwide Series] that we were making money hand over fist, when in the end, we lost."

Parsons said his sensitivity for the sport to which he's devoted his entire life --driving for more than 20 years in what's now the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series and owning cars in those two series, as well as working as a member of SPEED's Truck Series broadcast crew -- gave him an interesting perspective.

It's the same as every other owner that started a Cup team this season and it hasn't changed as MSRP has kicked off a second year of quickly retiring its Nationwide cars, though Cook is on a stirring string of three consecutive top-15 qualifying performances.

"With the economy the way it was, this was the perfect opportunity to start a [Cup] race team, with an opportunity to build it into a viable, competitive race team that when it's fully funded -- fully sponsored -- would be competitive," Parsons said. "The jury is still out on whether or not that can be done, but we've got great cars and we're getting great engineering support from [Michael Waltrip Racing].

"Every week we're trying to get better. We're trying to get in a position to where we can race. We have a sponsor in place for Charlotte and we're really looking forward to that. These are tough times and the bottom line is we've managed to employ a number of people who might not have jobs in the industry, otherwise.

"Our goal is to do the same thing in the Nationwide Series. I'd love to run two fully funded, competitive Nationwide teams, and we're working as hard as we possibly can to evolve our Nationwide program into a valid, funded operation that can race to win."

Parsons' take on the issue is the same as espoused by new owners like Larry Gunselman and Joe Nemechek, who's actually revisiting a scenario with his family run NEMCO Motorsports that he knew very well in the mid-1990s. It's obvious that other new team owners, like Kevin Buckler, Jeremy Mayfield and Tommy Baldwin, only know how to race all-out. But there's also reality.

"The more sponsor dollars you get, the harder you can run," Gunselman said before the season began. "I tell people all the time, if you don't have money, you've got to race smart, and you can race hard if you do have money."

Gunselman's team has been intermittently sponsored, with this weekend's activity being backed by a local Phoenix hotel property, the Hyatt Summerfield Suites. The owner says he's continued to monitor what's going on around him, as the "go-or-go-home" crowd still numbers 13 at Phoenix International Raceway this weekend, even though two former full-time teams fielded by Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and Yates Racing have shut down.

"It's tough to see something like that happen," Gunselman said. "We're still managing to make it to the track by sticking to the plan we made in the very beginning of the season. We have to watch every, and I mean every dollar to be able to make it to the track.

"When one of those teams closes, I can't tell you how many people call me or Doug [Richert, crew chief] or someone they know on the team looking for work. I wish I could hire them, but it's tough to add to a payroll when you don't have a partner on the hood or quarter panels. I wish we did, so we could become more competitive."

In the three races his team's made, Gunselman's car was coming forward at Las Vegas when the engine broke. Bodine qualified the car 16th at Bristol and got wrecked early. Their third start, at Martinsville, ended after three laps with another engine failure, which points back to more money equaling better performance in Gunselman's book.

"We're still having fun, though -- that's one thing I can say about this team," Gunselman said. "They work very hard to make sure we do everything we can to make the race. I really can't ask for anything more from them.

"I think the current economic conditions are going to weed a lot of people out of our sport that didn't get in it for the right reason to begin with, and the real racers are going to figure out a way to survive and come out of this economic situation still involved in the sport."

The bottom line remains that NASCAR is comfortable that its current crop of owners is doing its best to race correctly.

"One of NASCAR's founding principles has been providing teams with the opportunity to compete in our sport," NASCAR's statement said. "The current economic conditions have created opportunities for a few new teams to enter the sport at the highest level. We encourage teams to participate and do all they can to race to the best of their abilities."