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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
NEMECHEK: Doing More With Less
Although our goals can change each week, our first and foremost objective each Friday is to qualify for the race on time...
Joe Nemechek  | http://www.FrontRowJoe.com  |  Posted January 28, 2010   Charlotte, NC
The 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season marks the 17th year of competition for veteran driver and team owner Joe Nemechek. (Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Owning and operating any NASCAR team has its inherent challenges and struggles. But owning and driving for a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team on a shoestring budget comes with an entirely different set of circumstances.

I own and drive the No. 87 Nemco Motorsports Toyota in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and, at the moment, I do so weekly without a sponsor.

Fun? Sure. Easy? No way.

My team currently sits outside the top-35 in owner points, so I am not guaranteed a starting spot each week. We instead are charged with the task of qualifying on time, a situation that makes sponsorship even harder to come by.

But by far the biggest challenge we face is balancing the incredible expense of running a Cup team against the things we need to do and have in order to be competitive in the absence of a fulltime sponsor.

The numbers vary widely but a top-tier Cup team has an operating budget of anywhere between $15 million and $25 million per year per car but we operate Nemco Motorsports off of the purse money paid out after each race in which we compete. That’s how we keep the team going.

Just as the championship-contending teams set goals, so do we, and although our goals can change each week, our first and foremost objective each Friday is to qualify for the race on time. Once we do that, we can concentrate on seeing how we measure up in race mode.

Since owning my own Cup team, I’ve found there are several misconceptions about owners like myself who run their organizations on extremely limited funds. The biggest fallacy is that we’re getting rich off of this venture. That couldn’t be farther from the truth as I didn’t profit from this team last year. Running a Cup team is a very expensive undertaking.

People like to call us “start and parks” but my primary and lone motivation for going about my dream the hard way is that I have raced my entire life, want to stay in the sport and am trying to build a competitive race team. Unfortunately, I got caught in the middle when the national economy took a nosedive and ownership now is much more challenging.

But at the same time, the downturn in the economic climate opened up an entirely new avenue for me. I was able to start my team and put a few guys back to work who had lost their jobs in this industry. We succeeded in getting to the track every week last year without it costing me a fortune. Granted, we didn’t log as many complete races as I’d like, but there’s a huge difference between being competitive throughout the race and finishing it. The cost is astronomical and the most significant cost differential comes with the engine. We own most of our own equipment, as far as cars, transmissions and gears are concerned, but the engine and tires are two of the biggest expenses we incur. If you want good engines, you have to pay for them and TRT (Triad Racing Technologies) builds our motors and give us great power.

All the blood, sweat and tears we pour into this team are worth it to me. It’s sheer passion for and love of racing that keeps me hanging in there, pounding the pavement in search of a sponsor and hauling from track to track. It’s hard to believe that while I’m a past Nationwide Series champion with 15 Nationwide wins and four Cup victories, I’m still out there seeking financial backing. It does get quite frustrating but the tide hopefully will turn soon. More and more companies are talking to us nowadays on a weekly basis. While I don’t have a Cup sponsor locked in for Daytona, we do have a Nationwide company on board. In my book, that’s a start.

We will give that company and any other who supports us 110-percent of our effort. Our motto at Nemco Motorsports is to do more with less. We only have five guys working on the Cup car and three on the Nationwide entry, but we get an awful lot accomplished and can hold our heads high. We aren’t going to give up because with one little break, we could be sitting in really good shape.

Joe Nemechek celebrates his 17th season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2010. In 2009, he climbed behind the wheel of his own Cup car for the first time since 1996, making him one of a small number of current independent owner/drivers in NASCAR’s top division. Since his 1989 debut in the sport, the 1992 Nationwide Series champion has claimed four Sprint Cup and 16 NASCAR Nationwide Series victories. His uncanny knack for snagging pole positions earned him the nickname “Front Row Joe” years ago, and he has proven its validity by collecting 10 Sprint Cup and 18 Nationwide Series pole positions. Nemechek, 1990 Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year, was voted Most Popular Driver in ’92 and ’93. The Florida native cut his racing teeth in motocross at age 13, claiming more than 300 wins in six years, and since has gone on to post victories in every series in which he has competed.

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