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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Almirola, Team Looking For Cash
Questioned about sponsorship, driver Aric Almirola pulled no punches Saturday morning. “You got any money?” Almirola asked. “We don’t.”...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted January 10, 2009   Nashville, TN
Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 8 Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Chevrolet for 2009. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Questioned about sponsorship for his No. 8 Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Chevrolet for 2009, driver Aric Almirola pulled no punches Saturday morning. “You got any money?” Almirola asked. “We don’t.”

EGR like a lot of other NASCAR teams, is racing against the clock trying to find enough funding to run a full squad of cars for 2009. Specifically, the team would like to run four cars, but at the moment has but two-and-half sponsors: Bass Pro Shops for the No. 1 of Martin Truex Jr. and Target for the No. 41, driver to be named later, are the team’s two committed full-time sponsors, while Wrigley’s is on for half a season in the No. 42 driven by Juan Pablo Montoya. Almirola’s car has nothing at the moment.

TOM JENSEN BLOG: Nashville Cats

So like a lot of peers, Almirola is a little nervous these days, though he said team owners Teresa Earnhardt and Chip Ganassi have told him that he’ll have a ride this season, no matter what. “We’re trying to find money, but it’s tough, it really is,” Almirola said Saturday in Nashville, where he was participating in the Sprint Sound & Speed Presented by SunTrust festival. “There’s a lot of teams that are going after the same sponsors. It’s a brutal market out there right now. There are so many race teams that are without sponsors, that the few sponsors that are willing, everybody’s going after the same sponsors. They’re low-balling each other and taking a lot less.”

And what’s especially tough, as Almirola noted, was the fact that the car he drives finished 14th in NASCAR Sprint Cup owner points last season, when he shared the seat with veteran Mark Martin. Finding money for a top-15 car shouldn’t be a problem, but it is.

“You look at that, and it makes you wonder what in the heck is going on,” said Almirola. “We have an awesome race team, we have cars capable of running up front every single weekend and it’s tough. It’s tough to get sponsors right now, tough to get anybody to spend money. Just for an average American to go to the mall and buy something is tough. To ask a sponsor to spend $20 or $25 million is even tougher. We’re struggling with that right now.”

Still, Almirola said, the team’s goal is to run four full-time cars, though it could ultimately end up with three. The driver said that the team has talked about the possibility of putting him in the No. 41 if they wind up with just three cars, but that is not the plan at the moment.

TOM JENSEN BLOG: Nashville Cats

“The goal is to run four cars,” he said. “Everybody knows that to be able to compete with Hendrick and Gibbs and all those guys, you’ve got to have a multi-car team and four is way better than three. It costs you almost as much to run two cars as it does four, when you look at it from an in-the-shop standpoint. It’s way more beneficial to run four cars. If we have to run three cars, it may be a possibility, but that’s not what we’re striving for or shooting for. That’s not our goal. Our goals are to run four cars and be part of a four-car team. And hopefully we can do that.”

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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