New NASCAR ownership structure guarantees 36 starting spots
NASCAR and team owners unveiled a new ownership structure within the Sprint Cup Series Tuesday afternoon that guarantees 36 teams entry into every race on the schedule.
The charters are transferable, which means a team that decides to no longer participate in NASCAR can sell its guaranteed entry into Cup Series races. Before this agreement, Cup teams had no stake to sell outside of equipment, which usually sold for cents on the dollar.
“The new Charter program strengthens each of our businesses individually and the team model as a whole, which is good for NASCAR, our fans, drivers, sponsors and the thousands of people who we employ,” Chip Ganassi Racing co-owner Rob Kauffman said in a statement. “This will give us more stability and predictability, and it will allow us to take a more progressive, long-term approach to issues.
“NASCAR and the teams share a desire to preserve, promote and grow the sport and ultimately produce great racing for our fans and partners. These common goals served as the foundation for discussions and helped bring us to this unprecedented agreement. This is a great step forward for the entire sport made possible by Brian France setting a new course for the NASCAR industry and the owners coming together on shared issues. Everyone involved then compromised a bit to be able to come up with something that worked for all.”
The Cup field will also be shortened to 40 cars from 43. Four spots are available each race to teams that do not have charters. Kauffman, head of the Race Team Alliance, has been a driving force in getting the new system put in place. A charter can be sold once in five seasons and the current charter agreement is for nine years.
To get a charter, a team had to participate in the series for the last three seasons. Here are the teams that are getting charters:
• Richard Petty Motorsports (Aric Almirola and Brian Scott)
• Richard Childress Racing (Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman and Paul Menard)
• Team Penske (Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano)
• Hendrick Motorsports (Chase Elliott, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne)
• Roush Fenway Racing (Trevor Bayne, Greg Biffle and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.)
• Chip Ganassi Racing (Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson)
• Joe Gibbs Racing (Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth)
• Stewart-Haas Racing (Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and Danica Patrick)
• Furniture Row Racing (Martin Truex Jr.)
• Front Row Motorsports (Chris Buescher and Landon Cassill)
• JTG Daugherty Racing (AJ Allmendinger)
• Tommy Baldwin Racing (Regan Smith)
• Germain Racing (Casey Mears)
• Go FAS Racing (Jeffrey Earnhardt)
• BK Racing (David Ragan and Matt DiBenedetto)
• Premium Motorsports (Cole Whitt)
• Circle Sport Racing (Michael McDowell)
• HScott Motorsports (Clint Bowyer)
Michael Waltrip Racing also has two charters, though the team will not compete in 2016. Those two charters will likely be sold to Joe Gibbs Racing for Carl Edwards and to Stewart-Haas Racing for Kurt Busch, according to Kauffman. He retains the rights to the two MWR charters after he left the team in the middle of 2015 and bought in to CGR.
When asked about the value of a charter, Kauffman said the "single-digit" millions. The current four-car limit per team still exists, meaning a team can have a maximum of four charters.
NASCAR vice president Steve O'Donnell also said changes to the per-race points structure could be coming as part of the smaller field size. NASCAR's current 1-43 points per race payout is based off a 43-car field. With 40 cars, the last-place finisher would get 4 points instead of 1 under the 2015 system.
- - - - - - -
Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
