There is an old saying “one man’s misfortune is another man’s gain.” The same can be said about the Swan Racing deal in NASCAR that was officially announced on Wednesday. Swan Racing’s misfortune is XxxTreme Motorsports’ gain. However is it fair that a team that has only attempted two races in the 2014 season is higher in owner points than teams that have attempted all eight or six of the races because of a technicality?
John Cohen, owner of XxxTreme Motorsports, which has fielded the #44 Chevrolet with driver J.J. Yeley for two races in the 2014 season has bought interest in Swan Racing and has acquired the points from the #30 Toyota at Swan Racing, a car that has run all the races this season with driver Parker Kligerman. That may not seem like a big deal however, Swan Racing was a two car operation, the other car which was acquired by BK Racing and will run as the #26 Toyota in a third entry for the team at Richmond with driver Cole Whitt.
Yeley and his team will come down to Richmond 42nd in owner points but is that fair? The #35 team of Front Row Motorsports has attempted all eight races and is 46th in owner points, the #95 team of Leavine Family Racing is 44th in owner points and has attempted six races, and the #77 Randy Humphrey racing team is 47th in owner points and has attempted six races. The XxxTreme Motorsports #44 team had only attempted two races and sat 49th in owner points before now jumping to 42nd.
The situation is very similar to a situation that happened in the 2007 season when big money owner Bobby Ginn had recently purchased MB2 Motorsports and expanded the operation to a three car team before his money ran out and he had to sell his assets. Ginn looked at all potential suitors and settled with Dale Earnhardt Inc, which bought Ginn’s #01 and #14 cars giving the points from the #14 team to Paul Menard’s #15 Chevrolet locking Menard into the show. Ginn still had a set of points he could sell, from his #13 team which was driven by Joe Nemechek. Barney Visser and his Furniture Row Racing team came knocking on Ginn’s door asking if they could buy the remaining assets of Ginn’s team to lock their #78 Chevrolet into the top 35 by acquiring the #13 team.
It was all a great idea until NASCAR shot it down not allowing teams to sell their assets to two separate organizations. Dale Earnhardt Inc. ended up buying Ginn’s entire organization including the #13 team, shutting down that team completely.
It was a logical move because with so many big time teams looking to better themselves selling assets to one organization made sense. The team selling would be able to collect on some of their debts and the team buying could buy some essential points and sometimes race cars that they would need to compete in the Sprint Cup Series.
However, the hairy part comes when you divide the selling organization and allow their assets and teams to be sold separately. If two organizations can buy one organization than it’s a free for all. Then the next organization that would close down could sell their organization to several big teams, allowing no smaller organizations to grow. It just gets real messy and becomes very similar to the situation we experienced during the years of the “top 35 Rule.”
It would be a nightmare to try and figure out, who bought what team and who is now apart of what team, ect. It would just be a complicated disaster for NASCAR.
There is no doubt, it is great for the employees of Swan Racing that most of those people will keep their jobs and will be able to still provide for their families.
However, with no disrespect to those people, it is NASCAR’s job to provide the most competitive and most fair sport possible, something many can argue NASCAR did not do with their decision to allow the Swan Racing deal to close on Wednesday.
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