Time to embrace, not fear, foreign interest in NASCAR

These days, the cuts just keep on coming. Last week, bankrupt General Motors eliminated financial support to Nationwide and Camping World Truck teams racing under its Chevrolet brand. This week, Sprint Cup organizations -- including heavy-hitters such as Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing -- got the word that cutbacks were coming for them, as well. And in the middle of all of this comes an admission from NASCAR chairman Brian France, who said the series has held preliminary discussions with other foreign carmakers about potentially entering the sport.

It's the kind of statement that stokes fury within the hardcore purists for whom the V-8 engine is almost as sacrosanct as the Bible, people who still see Toyota as some kind of unwelcome interloper, who interpret the "national" in National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing to mean "all-American." The idea of another foreign manufacturer becoming involved in NASCAR turns them red, white, and blue with anger.

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Add RCR to the list of teams that will receive less funding as part of GM cutbacks in NASCAR.

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And yet, what is NASCAR supposed to do? Twiddle its thumbs while domestic manufacturers try to hack and slash their way out of a financial abyss? No question, the icons of Detroit are what have traditionally made stock-car teams go. NASCAR history is loaded with model names like Ford and Plymouth and Oldsmobile and Pontiac that were all built and raced in the USA. But those days are ending, people. The recent bankruptcies by Chrysler and GM serve notice that times have changed, that American buying habits have been irretrievably altered, that it's difficult to justify spending millions on racing programs when you're closing production plants and putting people out of work.

In that environment, you have two choices -- open the doors to everyone, or hold fast to a few, graying domestic carmakers that will likely never again be able to support motorsports at the level they once did. A lot of things still have to happen for the first alternative to become reality. But the result is a stronger NASCAR, ones whose fortunes are tied less to those in one struggling American city and spread more around the world.

Aside from Toyota, which entered the Cup tour in 2007, there are plenty of other foreign manufacturers that build cars in the United States -- crucial, given that any models that would be used in NASCAR competition must be made here. BMW has a plant near Greenville, S.C. Mercedes builds cars outside Tuscaloosa, Ala. Honda, which last year pulled out of Formula One, makes cars in Lincoln, Ala. (a city very near Talladega Superspeedway) and Marysville, Ohio. Kia is in West Point, Ga. Volkswagen is building a plant near Chattanooga, Tenn. Subaru is in Lafayette, Ind. Nissan has two plants in Tennessee and another in Canton, Miss. Given that most of those factories are in the South, it's natural to think that plenty of NASCAR fans are working the assembly lines. (Continued)