Time to embrace, not fear, foreign interest in NASCAR

These days, the cuts just keep on coming. Last week, bankrupt General Motors eliminated financial support to Nationwide and Camping World Truck teams racing under its Chevrolet brand. This week, Sprint Cup organizations -- including heavy-hitters such as Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing -- got the word that cutbacks were coming for them, as well. And in the middle of all of this comes an admission from NASCAR chairman Brian France, who said the series has held preliminary discussions with other foreign carmakers about potentially entering the sport.

It's the kind of statement that stokes fury within the hardcore purists for whom the V-8 engine is almost as sacrosanct as the Bible, people who still see Toyota as some kind of unwelcome interloper, who interpret the "national" in National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing to mean "all-American." The idea of another foreign manufacturer becoming involved in NASCAR turns them red, white, and blue with anger.

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Add RCR to the list of teams that will receive less funding as part of GM cutbacks in NASCAR.

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And yet, what is NASCAR supposed to do? Twiddle its thumbs while domestic manufacturers try to hack and slash their way out of a financial abyss? No question, the icons of Detroit are what have traditionally made stock-car teams go. NASCAR history is loaded with model names like Ford and Plymouth and Oldsmobile and Pontiac that were all built and raced in the USA. But those days are ending, people. The recent bankruptcies by Chrysler and GM serve notice that times have changed, that American buying habits have been irretrievably altered, that it's difficult to justify spending millions on racing programs when you're closing production plants and putting people out of work.

In that environment, you have two choices -- open the doors to everyone, or hold fast to a few, graying domestic carmakers that will likely never again be able to support motorsports at the level they once did. A lot of things still have to happen for the first alternative to become reality. But the result is a stronger NASCAR, ones whose fortunes are tied less to those in one struggling American city and spread more around the world.

Aside from Toyota, which entered the Cup tour in 2007, there are plenty of other foreign manufacturers that build cars in the United States -- crucial, given that any models that would be used in NASCAR competition must be made here. BMW has a plant near Greenville, S.C. Mercedes builds cars outside Tuscaloosa, Ala. Honda, which last year pulled out of Formula One, makes cars in Lincoln, Ala. (a city very near Talladega Superspeedway) and Marysville, Ohio. Kia is in West Point, Ga. Volkswagen is building a plant near Chattanooga, Tenn. Subaru is in Lafayette, Ind. Nissan has two plants in Tennessee and another in Canton, Miss. Given that most of those factories are in the South, it's natural to think that plenty of NASCAR fans are working the assembly lines.

Granted, not all of those carmakers would be interested in getting into NASCAR, not all of them make vehicles that would fit in with a stock-car series, and not all of them would meet the criteria that NASCAR sets forth for foreign involvement. But clearly the possibilities are there. And with the Big Three struggling, it's easy to see why a foreign carmaker might look to NASCAR to carve a larger piece of the U.S. market. "We are the pre-eminent place in North America for car manufacturers to build their business with an auto racing group," France said. "... And clearly, there are some companies that are going to look at opportunities that may not have been there in the past that may be there in the future."

Foreign interest

Brian France is open to new manufacturers joining NASCAR and there have been talks.

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Of course, the biggest obstacle may not be disinterest on the part of foreign carmakers, or the criteria NASCAR sets forth. It may be the histrionics on the part of traditional fans, the people whom "back to basics" was concocted to appease, folks who would view the courting of more foreign involvement as tantamount to opening the Mexican border. Of course, they're conveniently blind to the current, almost untenable situation with the domestic manufacturers, who are pulling back more and more. And many of them are unaware that NASCAR is already knee-deep in foreign involvement, even if most of the cars on the race track are made in the USA.

Worried about the internationalization of NASCAR? You're too late. It's happening now, all around you. The official tire of Infineon Raceway, host to Sunday's Sprint Cup event? Yokohama, headquartered in Tokyo. A technical partner of Richard Childress Racing? Okuma, a maker of computer numeric control devices, based in Nagoya, Japan. A technical partner of Stewart-Haas Racing? Sandvik Coromant, a machine tool company based in Sweden. The parent company of Crown Royal, Jamie McMurray's car sponsor at Roush Fenway Racing? Diageo, a beverage company headquartered in London. Sponsor partners at Hendrick Motorsports? Siemens, an engineering conglomerate, and Bosch, an automobile component supplier, both based in Germany.

NASCAR has conducted premier-level exhibition races in Japan, held Nationwide events in Canada and Mexico, and has a managing director for international affairs. Races have been broadcast in Spanish. During the past decade, drivers from Canada, Mexico, Japan, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Brazil and Colombia have competed in the sport's premier series. NASCAR is only falling in line with other major American professional sports, which have made a practice of holding exhibition or regular-season events overseas, whose team rosters are stocked with international players, and who realize that diversification is one key to long-term survival.

So please, enough hand-wringing over the potential of more foreign manufacturers arriving in NASCAR, which would only help the sport. If the domestic carmakers were on solid financial footing and able to devote the same resources to building motorsports programs that they once did, everything would be different. But they aren't. And really, this shouldn't be a big deal now that NASCAR has a second foreign carmaker anyway. What, you didn't hear? Chrysler, Dodge's parent company, emerged from bankruptcy last week after it struck a deal with Fiat, which will own a 35 percent stake in the U.S. manufacturer. The new, combined company will be run out of Fiat's headquarters -- located in Turin, Italy.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.