Wolf’s Word: Ride Buying And The Economics Of Racing

There was a time, many moons ago, that there was one sole defining characteristic of a professional race car driver: sheer talent. They didn’t need money or a pretty face to get the top, but rather, an unbridled ability to handle a race car and look fear and death square in its face. Sadly, the stepping stone to superstardom in motorsports is more akin to an auction than a tryout these days.

Much has been written in editorial columns across the entire spectrum of the auto racing world in recent years about the unpopular concept of “ride buying”, and the purpose of this column isn’t to re-hash what’s already been said, because in truth, it’s not a new concept and we can’t do anything to stop it. The era of money trumping talent is here. The question being begged now is: what’s brought this era about, and can the clock be turned back?

The concept of drivers buying a ride is a byproduct of two things: greed and/or necessity. There are plenty of examples of both all throughout motorsports, and in many cases, they are a direct result or correlation of the other.

Now, it’s no secret to anyone that the world and the society we live in today is completely defined and motivated by money. Happiness, health, morals, and laws all take a backseat to getting rich, and regardless of how much one has, they never have enough. Greed is engrained in our psyche. In no way are the actions of race team owners comparable to the lies, deceit and crookedness of Washington, Wall Street, and top corporate CEO’s, but the name of the game is still money, and competitiveness is easily sacrificed in a sport that’s all about competition if it translates to money in the bank.

The concept of drivers buying a ride is a byproduct of two things: greed and/or necessity.

The result of this greed has been more qualified and more popular drivers sitting on the sidelines while another individual with better marketing connections (or better marketability) suit up. In some cases, team owners still seek out the best talent, but they require the driver to handle his or her own sponsorship proposals and bring cash to the table. This seems perfectly legitimate and fair on the surface, but without insider information on the team’s financials, one will never know if they needed that money to operate, or they just wanted to, in effect, sell their ride.

But let’s flip over the coin and look at the other side of the equation.

Auto racing is grossly expensive, and it’s getting more expensive every year. And really, this is the fault of everyone involved. Racing organizations don’t take steps to curb costs, team owners attempt to out-spend their competition, and drivers demand a higher salary. This cycle of flawed economics just sends the cost of racing into a tailspin, and there has to be at least one loser.

In the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s, and even the early 90’s, professional drag racing teams didn’t have technology centers. They didn’t have giant corporate hospitality suites. They didn’t have a fleet of parts and merchandise trailers, nor did they operate expansive headquarters with complete machine shop and R&D equipment and personnel.

They didn’t test until their hearts were content. They had one rig, one crew, and a limited supply of parts. If they tore up too much stuff, they packed it in and went home. That’s how it was. And you know what? They put on a better show, sold more tickets, kept more sponsors, and had a more mainstream media following than they could even imagine today. Sure, times have changed, but today’s drag racing world is a different animal, and whether teams need all the excess that they have is highly arguable.

This dramatic increase in the cost of racing has led to team owners selling or auctioning off their ride simply out of necessity. They can’t hire the best driver when another has cash because without the said cash, they can’t even afford to put the truck on the road. The losers here are the talented drivers that don’t have connections.

When you get down to it, motorsports is just an extension of the economic turmoil, at a psychological level, that our society is at.

When you get down to it, motorsports is just an extension of the economic turmoil, at a psychological level, that our society is at. Tangible goods cost what they cost, services cost what they cost. People’s salaries are what they are, the dollar has a value, and greed is what it is. You can’t turn it back and fix everything, because no one would accept it. Everyone knows what they and/or their service or product is worth.

Let’s use the oil companies for example. Each and every crude oil company in the world would still make obscene profits if they cut the price of a gallon back to tolerable levels, but they know that Americans can afford $4 a gallon and more without even so much as changing their driving habits, so why would they ever give up their big profits? There’s simply no going back.

Similarly, you can’t expect the billion dollar business of auto racing to scale back the cost across the board, from the price of parts to how much teams spend on R&D to what they pay their crews and drivers. In a perfect world, we could turn back the clock and make operating a nitro car a million-dollar-a-year proposition, but we can’t.

What the organizations, the teams, the manufacturers — everyone involved in this industry — has to do is stop the ballooning costs to compete. Just because we can’t fix the current finances of the average race team doesn’t mean something can’t be done moving forward.

As I’ve pointed out in a previous column here on Dragzine, logic tells us at that if the cost to operate a nitro team for a year only increases by $500,000 rather than doubling to $3 million or more a decade from now, the odds of signing a sponsor with that kind of marketing budget significantly increase. And once you can get the sponsors in the door, you can fix a lot of problems — ride buying being one of them, along with short fields and slumping ticket sales.

It all boils down to the economics of racing — and as we’ve hit on here, some greed that comes along with it. We’ve seen the drivers lose, the fans lose, and even the owners lose. Get the costs in check, and everyone wins.