From jayski.com:

 

Ward Burton signs with Toyota team? Ward Burton has finally made official his rumored comeback by signing with one of the new Toyota teams which will be running full-time in the Nextel Cup Series in 2007 [Bill Davis Racing (very doubtful), Red Bull Racing (one spot open) and Michael Waltrip Racing (one spot open) are the three teams]. Burton has spent the last two years away from auto racing, choosing instead to concentrate on cultivating the Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation. While Burton has had opportunities over the last two years come back to NASCAR, he chose instead to wait until the right opportunity came along, rather than risk running poorly week in and week out for a lower-tier team and subsequently ruining any chance he might have at a premiere ride. Burton and the team plan to make their debut this season. Full story at LastCowboys.com.(8-22-2006)

 

this will be interesting to see if it comes true

I can't see Ward selling Red Bull, so I have to think it's the 00 Dominos/Burger King ride.

I just hope Ward will be competitive again with regards to not wrecking or things breaking everyweek. 

Onslow - dude - love that character :)

Guarantee Ward is going to be a one person wrecking machine at least through the first 20 races.  He has been out of it too long. 

Don't count on this happening - story pulled - probably NOT true.

What's going on right now in Cup is

DEI deciding if they will have a 4th team

The 01/14 team deciding if they will expand to more teams

RYR & RGM deciding if they could do some kind of merger.

So there are 4 open seats in the above scenerio.

Also the Haas team might be looking to add a car.

what would it do to those teams trying to get in. 34, 37, 49, ect

There is still room for a new mega team to get into cup.

but who has 100 mill to throw around on a hobby ? It would take a serious effort to enter cup & compete like Ray did several years back.

na$car is pretty lucky to have that interest with the way they do things in general.

mdw442:

Onslow - dude - love that character :)

Guarantee Ward is going to be a one person wrecking machine at least through the first 20 races.  He has been out of it too long. 

Thanks , but I would think he has been hitting some tracks getting some practice.  And he'll be out of work right quick if he's always bending sheet metal the wrong way.

Let's do a little math here:

43 car field

5 Roush cars (6, 16, 17, 26, 99)
4 Hendrick cars (5, 24, 25, 48)
3 RCR cars (07, 29, 31)
3 JGR cars (11, 18, 20)
3 DEI cars (1, 8, 15)
3 Evernham cars (9, 10, 19)
3 Ganassi cars (40, 41, 42)
3 Waltrip cars (00, ??, 55)
2 Davis cars (22, ??)
2 Red Bull cars (??, ??)
2 Yates cars (38, 88)
2 Petty cars (43, 45)
2 MB2 cars (01, 14)
2 Penske cars (2, 12)
1 Wood Brothers car (21)
1 Robby Gordon car (7)
1 HOF car (96)
1 Boris Said car (supposedly full time next year, right? -- I forget his number)

That's 43 cars right there. Something has to give next year.

Nope, denied.

If had a rumor for every ward rumor...

let it die, bros.

Jimmy James:

Let's do a little math here:

43 car field

5 Roush cars (6, 16, 17, 26, 99)
4 Hendrick cars (5, 24, 25, 48)
3 RCR cars (07, 29, 31)
3 JGR cars (11, 18, 20)
3 DEI cars (1, 8, 15)
3 Evernham cars (9, 10, 19)
3 Ganassi cars (40, 41, 42)
3 Waltrip cars (00, ??, 55)
2 Davis cars (22, ??)
2 Red Bull cars (??, ??)
2 Yates cars (38, 88)
2 Petty cars (43, 45)
2 MB2 cars (01, 14)
2 Penske cars (2, 12)
1 Wood Brothers car (21)
1 Robby Gordon car (7)
1 HOF car (96)
1 Boris Said car (supposedly full time next year, right? -- I forget his number)

That's 43 cars right there. Something has to give next year.

I was doing some of this math over the weekend, Jimmy.  To me, it's kind of fascinating.  I mean, everybody seems to think that they have to get themselves to the 4-car business model in order to spread all of the fixed costs out over as many teams as possible so that they can stretch the sponsor revenue a little further.

Then, what makes it even more interesting is when you look at this list.  You start to realize why the folks towards the bottom (Robby Gordon, for example) might look further up that list for either a partner, or an acquisition like the RYR rumor.  If those guys at the bottom just try to add cars to their current operation, they are just making the problems associated with scarcity (sponsors, driver talent, engineers, etc.) even worse.  But, if they can merge/buy some of the folks further up the list, it's a little "easier" in the long run due to the scarcity issues.

Of course, the folks up the list could turn this around and work down the list just as easily.  But, I figure that the single-car teams probably have a little more since of urgency regarding this stuff than the 2-car teams just because they are having a tougher time competing AND drawing contingency sponsors.

I keep wondering just how many 4-car teams the series can support, if in fact, that is THE business model.  Eleven teams is 44 cars; so, at least one sits every week.  If you go to 12, it's five sitting out.  So, where is that limit?  Let's assume that it is 12.  I have a real hard time believing that the first 8 teams on Jimmy's list are going anywhere.  Maybe, but I doubt it.

If this were true, then there's 4 slots left.  Who are they going to be?  It's kind of hard to imagine Penske going anywhere, too.  But, they also have the "opportunity" to spread some of their fixed expenses over the Indy car operation, too.  Isn't Roger closing down his operation up in Reading (I know it just got flooded recently) and moving it to NC for that very reason?

This stuff is going to be fun to watch!

Sorry for the novel, and the thread hijack. 

Jimmy James:

Let's do a little math here:

43 car field

5 Roush cars (6, 16, 17, 26, 99)
4 Hendrick cars (5, 24, 25, 48)
3 RCR cars (07, 29, 31)
3 JGR cars (11, 18, 20)
3 DEI cars (1, 8, 15)
3 Evernham cars (9, 10, 19)
3 Ganassi cars (40, 41, 42)
3 Waltrip cars (00, ??, 55)
2 Davis cars (22, ??)
2 Red Bull cars (??, ??)
2 Yates cars (38, 88)
2 Petty cars (43, 45)
2 MB2 cars (01, 14)
2 Penske cars (2, 12)
1 Wood Brothers car (21)
1 Robby Gordon car (7)
1 HOF car (96)
1 Boris Said car (supposedly full time next year, right? -- I forget his number)

That's 43 cars right there. Something has to give next year.

Nevermind if, as rumored, both DEI and Gibbs expand to four car teams next year.

Looking into the future, you have Roush dropping a car to four and Hendrick staying at four. Gibbs, DEI, RCR, Ganassi, and Yates have all publically announced an intent to eventually get to four cars in the not-too-distant future, and there have been indications that Penske will bring back the 77 car next year with Kodak. That's 31 cars from just those seven organizations. If you keep all of the other totals the same (an unrealistic prospect in and of itself, as I'm sure Toyota will want to have the max amount of cars eventually for all of its teams, and I'm sure Evernham and Penske won't stand on their heels as everyone goes to four), that's 49 cars from reasonably competitive organizations that you have listed, not even counting Haas/CNC (which may be dead anyways, if Gene Haas gets sent to the slammer), PPI, Morgan-McClure, and newcomer Riley. As you said, something has got to give, and I think eventually there will come a time when we see, rather than team expansion, team "subtraction," as the costs of competition soar, and not all of the teams from each organization will be performing well enough to maintain profitability of keeping the expanded number of teams. Not to mention you'll probably see teams like PPI and Morgan-McClure, perhaps even MB2, go the way of Travis Carter, BBR, and Ricky Rudd's team in recent memory.

I personally would like to have seen the maximum have been placed at 3 cars. I think it's fine to have a limit on the number of entries: every competitive team sport has a limit on the number of players who can be on the field at one time and the amount of players who can be activated for a game day roster. Formula One, the other premier racing series world-wide, has two-car limits per team with about 11 teams (although this is a bit deceiving, since Red Bull technically has a "B Team" in Toro Rosso in addition to its own self-named team), and bringing the limit to 3 cars in NASCAR would create a limit with similiar proportions to that of F1. If you have Hendrick, Roush, RCR, Gibbs, Ganassi, DEI, Evernham, Penske, Yates, Waltrip, Red Bull, BDR, Petty, and perhaps some other big organization with 3 cars each, that's 14 organizations for 42 cars. That's plenty of competitive to somewhat competitive teams to fill the field with relative parity in resources, and the teams are distributed rather nicely among the manufacturers: 4 for Chevrolet/GM (Hendrick, RCR, Gibbs, DEI), 4 for Dodge (Ganassi, Evernham, Penske, Petty), 3 for Toyota (Waltrip, Red Bull, BDR), 2 for Ford (Roush, Yates).

The problem with 3 car teams is that I'm pretty sure at least Hendrick and Roush would try every way possible to run two sets of teams each. I just don't see the way around it, either. Roush as it is right now seems to really want to give a team to Mark Martin. It's not like football -- this isn't a league with bylaws that keeps Synder from owning the Redskins *and* the Cowboys.

I wonder if we won't eventually see manufacturers buy seats at the table and allot them among teams. If Ford wants to buy 9 cars and let Roush deal with them all, that would be permissible. If Chevrolet wants to buy 16 and give 4 each to Hendrick, RCR, JGR, and DEI, that's also fine.

Jimmy James:

I wonder if we won't eventually see manufacturers buy seats at the table and allot them among teams. If Ford wants to buy 9 cars and let Roush deal with them all, that would be permissible. If Chevrolet wants to buy 16 and give 4 each to Hendrick, RCR, JGR, and DEI, that's also fine.

That's an interesting thought.  This reminds me of something I read a while back.  It was a piece basically theorizing what the impact of NASCAR issuing the teams like franchises (with a limited number obviously) would be.  I'll have to see if I can find it and post a link.

Red Hot Rookie Ward Burton in the Hardee's chevrolet.

 

strike that....

Red Hot semi-retired driver Ward Burton in the Toyota dealers Toyoder'