Travis Kvapil leads AJ Allmendinger and Kevin Harvick during practice for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the Infineon Raceway. (Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images Photo)
Race fans aren’t the only ones getting hammered by high fuel prices. Teams are feeling the pain at the pump, too, especially smaller and less well-funded organizations, who are struggling with the high cost of racing.
For NASCAR Sprint Cup teams, most of whom operate their own airplane or fleet of airplanes, the recent sharp spike in gas prices has driven up annual aviation fuel costs by as much as $500,000 this year. And that hurts.
“We’re trying to do all the things you’re supposed to do to run a business, but damn it, we’re definitely feeling the pinch and the squeeze, for sure,” said Ty Norris, vice president and general manager of Michael Waltrip Racing.
Norris said MWR, which operates a fleet of three aircraft for its three NASCAR Sprint Cup and one Nationwide Series teams, said the company’s aviation fuel bill has gone up $350,000 to $400,000 this year.
And the massive 53-foot transporters teams use to haul their race cars back and forth to the tracks are voracious consumers of costly diesel fuel. Peter Jellen, the hauler driver for Kyle Busch’s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Sprint Cup team, said making the haul from the team’s North Carolina headquarters to Sonoma, Calif., this week required more than 670 gallons of diesel fuel at a cost of more than $3,200.
That means for the three JGR Cup teams, the round-trip cost of bringing the haulers to and from California will be about $20,000. And that doesn’t include salaries, hotels or transporting the dozens of crew members out here. It’s enough to make the teams cringe.
“Our expenses are way up,” said Jeff Burton, driver of the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. “It’s expensive to go test, it’s expensive to go to races.”
And there’s not a lot the teams can do to cut cost. MWR’s Norris said the team has combined flights with Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Haas-CNC Racing on occasion to try and save a few bucks, and the team is trying to optimize the use of its planes to cut down on waste. But there’s only so much they can do.
“Unfortunately, you can’t test less or you’d get left behind by the bigger-budget guys,” said Norris.
