Nascar CEO talking to automakers, won’t offer bailout

While France said that Nascar would survive if a manufacturer left the series, the racing league is trying to keep them in place until 2010, when a change in union benefit funding will ease some of the financial strain on U.S. automakers, according to a transcript of his news conference at Phoenix International Raceway Sunday.

“The sport is on very, very solid ground that transcends one manufacturer or another,” said the 46-year-old grandson of Nascar founder Bill France Sr. “We’re not also going to live or die if one manufacturer or another manufacturer has a pullback or a pullout. I hope it doesn’t happen.?We’re working like mad to make sure it doesn’t.”

Nascar race teams are considering mergers and layoffs as the credit crunch puts the brakes on consumer and corporate spending, cutting the number of sponsors willing to spend as much as US$25 million to back a single car.

General Motors Corp., which puts more than US$100 million annually into Nascar, may see its stock drop to zero in a year, Deutsche Bank AG said in a report Monday.

France said he met with executives of GM, Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Holding LLC and Toyota Motor Corp. to discuss their involvement in Nascar. All four have contracts through the 2009 season to fund teams and technical development.

France also ruled out a Nascar-backed credit facility for struggling teams like the US$2 billion the National Football League extended to its teams.

“They’re individual businesses and there are literally hundreds of them that can be affected,” France said. “We’re not talking about 20 or 25 traditional sports teams where some halo credit line could be established for them. That’s not practical.”

Nascar will make a greater effort to contain costs to help teams, France said. The sport may cut the number of tests that are held between races, which could reduce operating costs by as much as US$40 million, he said. Nascar is also helping to facilitate mergers and other cost-cutting measures among teams.

Race teams are bracing for a wave of firings following the season-ending race in Miami on Nov. 16.

Hendrick Motorsports, the most-valuable team in Nascar in a Forbes magazine survey, fired as many as 50 employees last week, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The lack of sponsor spending could also extend to the television networks that air Nascar races, France said.

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