CUP: Big Changes At Germain Racing

Sprint Cup

CUP: Big Changes At Germain Racing

Germain Racing switches focus to Cup with move to Ford, no truck teams...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted January 09, 2012 Charlotte, NC

Casey Mears will be in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driving for Germain Racing.(Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Photo)

Germain Racing enters 2012 with a much different strategy than in 2011.

A year ago, it had four truck teams and one Sprint Cup team. While it was coming off the truck series championship, it also went to Daytona without solid funding for all those programs and also without a spot in the Daytona 500.

This year, Germain has a spot in the Daytona 500 but will no longer field any truck teams.

Throw in a switch to Ford and what a difference a year makes as the organization has gone from more than 100 employees to about 25.

“We started last year with four truck teams and it was way too much for us to take on,” team owner Bob Germain said in a phone interview. “Last year was a long season for us. We weren’t very competitive in the truck series. We felt the Cup program made a lot of progress. Overall, it was a good decision for our team.

“It was a little painful when you reduce the size of your team that much and a lot of people we worked over the last seven years aren’t with us now. It was an emotional process, but we were committed to it and focused on getting to where we are today.”

The organization has funding for 22-23 Cup races from Geico and hopes to have enough money to avoid having Casey Mears start and park in 2012. Mears put the Cup car solidly in the top 35 (32nd overall) to lock the organization into the first five races of 2012.

And he did that without making the Daytona 500 after two engine failures thwarted his efforts.

“When we had those issues and didn’t make the race, it was pretty demoralizing to a lot of guys,” Mears said. “The hard work that we put in last year to make sure that we’re secure inside the points really has paid off.

“It puts us in a good position to just go down there and think about racing. It’s exciting to go back to Daytona for the first time in two years knowing I’m going to be in the race.”

The team goes to Daytona with Fords instead of Toyotas, with whom it had a long relationship. Germain didn’t plan to switch but hoped to change from Triad engines to Toyota Racing Development engines. TRD, which already is building engines for Michael Waltrip Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing and had planned on backing Red Bull Racing, too, wouldn’t commit to building engines for the organization until 2013, Germain said.

So Germain went looking for a new manufacturer and now has a deal with Ford. It will buy cars from Roush Fenway Racing and lease engines from Roush Yates Engines. Germain has numerous Toyota and Lexus dealerships but the family’s first dealership sold Fords and the family has deep roots with the company.

Mears will test next week at Daytona with a car re-skinned from Toyota to Ford but likely will have a Roush Fenway chassis by Speedweeks next month.

“Knowing that you’re getting cars that were in contention to win the championship last year, even though you know it’s not going to be 110 percent exact, it’s going to be very close,” Mears said. “The biggest challenge this year is getting on the same page, understanding these cars versus the cars we had last year and knowing how to make them go fast.

“When we figure that out, at least we know that we have the equipment underneath us that is capable of doing it. It’s just going to be a matter of getting it right.”

Germain has shown the ability to field competitive equipment. The Germain family started the team in 2004, won two truck titles with Todd Bodine and 22 races overall in the series.

But while Bob Germain will go to Daytona next month excited about being in the Daytona 500, it could be a painful Friday night.

“I’ll probably sit there watching the truck race and trying to figure out why we’re not racing in the truck race,” Germain said. “It was a decision that we made. I feel good about it. … It was a tough process to go through but we knew it was something we had to do.”

Much of the painful part – parting with Bodine, crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. and general manager Mike Hillman Sr. and others who played an integral role in building the organization – hurt, but it’s a decision Germain said was necessary. Although he loved the series, he could not fund the trucks out of his own pocket if sponsorship didn’t come through.

“Things changed a lot in the truck series since we got in in terms of manufacturer support,” Germain said. “That changed, sponsorship became a little bit tougher to get and a lot of the team owners like myself that have other businesses and the business climate over the past four or five years has been pretty difficult.”

Germain said any future expansion likely would be to a second Cup car and not a truck or Nationwide team.

Casey Mears had been with Germain Racing for all of 2011. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

For now, Germain said the team will run the first 10 races the full length and hopes it has done enough to attract funding to keep the team from just showing up, qualifying, and running a few laps before going home. Germain has relationships with Valvoline, Tire Kingdom and Service Central that it hopes to put on the hood.

“I feel personally that we should run consistently in the top 20,” Germain said. “We had some really good runs toward the end of last year. We could really see the progress that we were making. We want to get some top-10s. We want to continue to improve the program and be more competitive.”

Mears said that can be done, with both him and crew chief Bootie Barker having run near the front at times in their careers.

“Last year, if we could be inside the top 20, it was a pretty big accomplishment,” Mears said. “We knew the battles we had and what we were facing internally.

“The stuff that we’ve done at Germain Racing, to make it more efficient, to make it more organized, the parts and pieces we’re getting, I’d like to see us inside the top 15 on a regular basis with opportunities at times to be inside the top 10 and the top five.”

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DAYTONA PRESEASON THUNDER TESTING: During the Jan. 12-14 test sessions at Daytona International Speedway, fans can submit questions and comments through Twitter @SPEED (http://www.twitter.com/speed) using the #daytonatesting hashtag.