NASCAR Chase On

[Don]

" Start & Park " Teams have appeared a number of times in the Nationwide series, it's the choice of the Team, not NASCAR. These underfunded and non-major/primary sponsored Teams need the start money to either support another car or allow full participation at other races. Realistically, the practice has been allowed when it is quite evident there would not be a full complement of cars.

More & more Teams in the Cup series have multiple major/primary sponsors during the year to share the costs, even Gordon's DuPont #24 has used this approach with Pepsi

During 2009 I cannot recall any race where there was just 43 cars so all automatically qualify. Some races have had upwards of 48/50 + cars attempting to qualify.

Is it luck or driving/Team skill when the top drivers are able to come from far back and be a top 5 or 10 finisher, even navigating the traffic when lapping other cars, a skill JJ has to plan his moves.

[Ron61]

Don,

I think there was one race this year where they had to have 1 more car. As for coming from the back, it is not only JJ that has done that, but it takes not only skill but luck if you don't get caught up in someone else's mess. Lapping traffic is a hard thing to do as they don't want to go a lap down and will fight until they cause a wreck or whoever is trying to lap them finally gets by. As the economy improves I believe there will be more sponsors willing to go part way on a team. But I do believe the day of the major sponsor is over where one company sponsors a whole team.

Ron