Driver Shortages

An upcoming driver shortage looms, Yates crew chiefs, and The Winston, 2003.

Driver Shortage ........

As this past week started out, three driver's seats were open in Cup. Of course Jerry Nadeau needs a replacement for who knows how long, and everyone has heard the news by now about Richard Childress booting Jeff Green and DEI finally booting Steve Park.

These three openings in Cup got me to thinking about the future driver situation. There aren't really a lot of up and coming competitors available that can cover the upcoming retirement of some of the veteran Cup regulars. NASCAR isn't the only playing field in stock car racing these days.

Most young racers have been known to work their way up through ARCA and ASA into the Busch Series as a stepping stone into the high paying high profile Cup Series. The Busch Series has been having financial problems for a few seasons now and things are getting worse as time progresses. It's possible that NASCAR will divert a little more of its profits into the Busch Series, but I don't know of anyone who is holding their breath while waiting for this to happen.

Another facet adding to the upcoming driver situation may be the new TRAC series that is scheduled to make its debut late next spring. The series hopes to start out with 24 teams and each one will need a driver. Actually, that series is planning different types of racing and it may involve even more than 24 drivers to handle the specialty courses and three different types of cars.

Normally, at any given time, there is a list of Cup drivers standing by to substitute for injured drivers or fall into the seat of a driver who has been sacked. This list is practically non-existent today. I can think of four former cup drivers right off the bat that have moved over to the Craftsman Truck Series, Bobby Hamilton, Ted Musgrave, Robert Pressley, and Jason Leffler. These drivers aren't readily available to take over Cup rides, they have other obligations.

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