I am on record in believing that the impact of team finances on baseball teams’ success is wildly overstated. I am increasingly coming to believe, though, that the effect of team finances on NASCAR drivers’ success may be much greater than acknowledged, to the point of dwarfing the impact of differences in drivers’ skills.

Start with a look at the driver standings almost two-thirds of the way through the 2007 season: the top ten drivers come from only four teams, all of which field at least three cars in each race: Hendrick, RoushFenway, Childress, and Gibbs. Conversely, the highest-ranking single-car team is Robby Gordon, driving for himself and currently 26th in driver points. That alone seems like a strong piece of evidence that economies of scale in engineering, pit crew training, and other areas offset material differences in driver ability; can anyone claim with a straight face that 21st-ranked JJ Yeley is a better driver than Robby Gordon?

The remaining three-car teams are either right behind the rest (DEI boasts the 10th-, 14th-, and 18th-ranked drivers), or suffer from team-specific problems such as Waltrip’s qualifying issues.

What’s more, the top-ten drivers have won 17 out of 22 races so far this season. Not shocking, since you’d expect people who win races to be high in the points standings. But look at the remaining races - all but one were won by drivers for teams with three or more cars as well. The trend is little better looking at top-five finishes; of 110 top-five places through 22 races, just 16 belong to drivers for teams with fewer than three cars. Perhaps this is just the acceleration of a trend that has been in place for some time; in the past 17 years, only twice - Alan Kulwicki in 1992 and Dale Jarrett in 1999 - was the Cup won by a driver for other than the four teams that currently own the top ten.

This also offers some insight into Junior’s decision to join Hendrick. If he wants maximize his chance to win a championship, his choices are limited to four teams. Roush already has too many teams (plus they drive Fords and he wanted to remain with Chevys). Driving for Childress would only put him further into his father’s shadow. So he really only had two teams to choose from.

The Car of Tomorrow was supposed to reduce the larger teams’ advantages by standardizing a lower-cost car. That may turn out to be the case in the long run, but so far Hendrick drivers have been even more dominant in COT races than in non-COT ones. I have to think that was a factor in the draconian penalties NASCAR hit Hendrick cars with for violations of non-existent specs.

In any event, if NASCAR fails to act the problem will likely grow more acute as larger teams grow more financially sophisticated. Jack Roush just sold half of his company to Fenway Sports Group for a fraction of its market value in an attempt to expand his team’s sponsorship opportunities. Evernham just sold a majority stake to Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett for the same strategic reasons that motivated the Roush-Fenway deal. The DEI - Ginn deal turns two underperforming three-car teams into a potentially imposing four-car team. The default future for the sport may be a bifurcated landscape, with a half-dozen teams with revenues of over $100 million competing for all the glory, and everyone else doing not much more than filling out the field.

Robby Gordon’s primary role in NASCAR is to make Tony Stewart seem like an exemplar of Solomonic wisdom and judgement, so when something sketchy occurs and he’s involved, the default assumption - not unreasonably - is that Gordon is at fault. But in Saturday’s Busch Series race in Montreal, Robby Gordon got hosed.

During the caution, Gordon was informed that because he had not been officially scored in the lead at the time of the caution, he should restart in second place. Fair enough. But then NASCAR came back and said that since being spun out by Ambrose prevented him from maintaining course speed, he should restart where he finally righted himself, back in 13th place. Got that? Ambrose spins Gordon out under a caution, and NASCAR comes back and says Gordon should pay the price for it. Badly done, though about what one expects from an outfit run by Brian France, whose intellectual firepower appears to be somewhere between that of Lindsay Lohan, and a cucumber.

Gordon's response was largely predictable, but still one of the most fun things to watch so far this season. I think Gordon's claim that he was the true winner of the race is not without merit. He deserved to restart in second, and after Gordon got past Ambrose, nobody else was going to catch him. Yet instead of getting the checkered flag, Gordon gets a suspension and probation. Lame.

I must say, though, that I really admired Ambrose's equanimity after the race, and am also impressed with Gordon's gesture of giving Ambrose a ride in this week's Cup race. Kudos to both of them.