Hendrick Motorsports general manager Marshall Carlson was enthusiastic about the NASCAR town hall meetings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“We have to work out a sensitive plan that can be implemented that keeps the racing good and that’s cost effective. It’s all on the table for further discussion.”

Pemberton said the brand identity issue is more of a long-term project.

“That’s a little bit farther off,” Pemberton said. “There are some things that we’re working on short term and long term. [We’re] trying to get a feel and get synced up when it would be the right time to strike with new stuff as it relates to the manufacturers’ vehicles they’re rolling out.”

All teams were invited to the meetings last week. In the business meeting, ideas for selling the sport were discussed, especially where there are different ideas on how the sport should be administered that can come across with a highly negative tone.

“Sometimes, we’re our own worst enemies,” said Torrey Galida, executive vice president of TRG Motorsports. “We’d like to find some ways to make that a more positive message.

“On the revenue side, it’s going to be what it’s going to be, and we’re all working as hard as we can to put the right kind of packages together for sponsorship, putting the right spin on the [television] ratings, but we talked a lot about the cost-savings side as well. If we can limit the number of crews or eliminating scorers would be a help. Two-day shows is where we started off. There are things that we’re going to have to solve to get that done.”

Carlson said he expects more discussion and research of the issues talked about but no imminent changes. And while at some point there needs to be action, Carlson said he didn’t think this was just a meeting of talk that would result in no action.

“This is one of the first times that we’ve been able to do this in this way,” Carlson said. “If we’re sitting here a year from now and all we’re doing is still talking about stuff, I’ll give you that [it was just talk]. But to look at the last year and see how far things have come, where now we’ve got competitors, the sanctioning body and some track folks being able to communicate is a great start.”

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