Although I live in NASCAR country I didn't grow up here, so a lot of it is kind of new to me.  Take the money involved; I've always realized that there's major money in racing, but until I read Mike Mullhern's post about a recent owner's meeting I didn't really realize exactly how much money is involved.  Check this out:

"And the owners really need to get together and agree to stop paying these drivers $10 million. We've got a good deal with our drivers….but we've had drivers come to use asking for $12 million to drive the car…

"These special pit crews are so costly – ours are earning more than the rest of the guys on the team who are working seven days a week. I understand pit stops are cool, but my gosh these special crews are prohibitively expensive. They make half-again as much as the regular crew guys.

"On top of that, the tire bill each weekend for each car is $30,000. They've got to get that down to $20,000.

"And the motor bill is $100,000 per car…and you've got to get that down to $60,000 or $70,000. And the only way to do that is to run fewer miles.

"Those $12,000 to $15,000 special high-pressure radiators – most teams tried them but got away from them. We use the standard $2,000 radiator…

"The money in these cars is in motors and tires. On each of our teams, there's $4.5 million a year in engines and tires that's just 'gone.' That's the problem."

Well, you can forget me complaining about my $95/tire special at Discount Tire.  Sheesh.