Mike Skinner, Jack Sprague, Ted Musgrave and Dennis Setzer are legends in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series totaling 88 career division victories between them. In case you are counting or wondering, that’s more than 25 percent of the total 
number of races (342) run in the Truck Series since the division debuted in 1995.
To date however, only Setzer – who just last Friday agreed to a part-time deal – has announced he has a ride for the 2009 season.
“I can’t believe it, I’ve never seen it like this,” Setzer stated in a phone interview late Friday afternoon. “I just talked to Jack Sprague and he’s in the same situation. There’s nothing available right now. It’s really ugly. Sponsorship is harder than ever to come by and the owners who have been funding their teams out of their own pockets for a long time aren’t willing to do that this year because the economy has hit their personal businesses hard. You’re always worried about being on the outside looking in and it is here now for a lot of guys – myself, Jack, Todd Bodine, Mike Skinner, Ted Musgrave, David Starr. Everyone is trying to put something together. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Setzer’s not alone in wondering what the Truck Series will look like when the 2009 season opens at Daytona in a scant two weeks. With the weak economy bludgeoning all three top NASCAR divisions, the off season has been filled with bad tidings for teams, drivers and crew members associated with the stock car sanctioning body. Rumors of short starting fields and lack of competition – especially in the Truck Series – have been rampant. For Setzer, a NASCAR regular since making his debut in the All Pro 300 Busch (now Nationwide) Series race at Charlotte in 1991, having even a part-time Truck Series gig this year is a reason to celebrate.
“I got a deal in the last couple of days with Dave Malcomson and the No. 8 MRD truck,” said Setzer. “It’s only for 12 races, but I’m pretty happy about that. Atlanta will be my first 
race with them. Anything that I can get to fill in the other races would be nice. Right now, I don’t have anything scheduled for Daytona, California or the spring Martinsville race. Heck, I won the spring Martinsville race last year. It would be hard to miss that one, so I am hoping I can find something for that race and something to fill in the other ones too.”
At the start of any other season, team owners would be begging Setzer to drive their truck. A veteran of 267 Truck Series starts, the Newton, NC driver has won 18 events and posted 78 top-five finishes. In more than half of his Truck Series starts, Setzer has posted a top-10 finish (148 total). According to the accomplished driver, there are several reasons why Truck Series teams are currently in a financial funk.
“When I got in the Truck Series in 1998, the purses were about the same then as they are now,” Setzer commented. “Actually, they may have been better in 1998. You know, we had some races really good paying races. Las Vegas paid $80,000 to $100,000 to win back then (last year it paid $57,450) and some other races paid some really big bucks. For some reason, the purses dropped down quite a bit since then.
“Also, we’re taking a lot more people to the racetrack now than we did back in 1998,” Setzer continued. “I was driving for Bob Keselowski back then and we were doing half-time breaks and taking three or four guys to the race track. Now, we have 12 or more guys coming to the track each race to prepare and service the race truck – all basically on the same amount of sponsorship we had back then. The cost of running the series has grown tremendously and unfortunately, we haven’t seen the purses and sponsorship grow with that.”
While the recent NASCAR decree to cutback testing and an off-season crew person purging at the team level is sure to save some money, Setzer stated the Truck Series needs to be finding ways to make more money – not just trying to save it.
“We need to figure out how we can give our sponsors more for their money,” said Setzer. “If I get $3 million in sponsorship, I need to give back $6 million worth of advertising to make it a worthwhile, profitable deal for them. Maybe we need to get some regular (network) TV races with more exposure instead of having all the races on SPEED (cable) to get the sponsor value of the races up. We’ve got to find additional ways get the value of the series up. We can’t go to a sponsor and tell them we need $3 million and then only 
give them $1.5- to $2-million in advertising. That’s not a good deal for them. It’s hard for a CEO to take that in front of his board and get that approved.”
Unfortunately, there is only one (California) network telecast – which deliver significantly more viewership than cable programs – on the Truck Series TV schedule this season. Additionally, NASCAR – which has also cut staff at the corporate and track official level heading into 2009 - has yet to announce any new or enhanced media, public relations or marketing programs for the Truck Series this season despite bringing new series sponsor Camping World to the table. Finally, 2009 race payouts will be consistent with those paid in 2008 with most events averaging in the $55,000 - $65,000 range for the winner (Daytona paid the highest winner’s purse last year - $96.800 last year – nearly $20,000 more than the next highest winner’s total).
While at first glance those winner’s prize money awards are impressive, the real money – the total paid to the rest of the field in Truck Series events – is woefully lacking with most races paying around $10,000 for a seventh- through 10th-place finish.
Worse, 16 of the 25 races paid less than $9,000 to start last season with two of those events giving the last-place finisher a check in the neighborhood of $6,700. Again, Daytona paid the most – just over $13,000 to start - still woefully inadequate considering the teams had to be on site for nearly a week to run the 200-mile race.
In a nutshell, the Truck Series purses are hardly befitting the third most popular form of racing in America and certainly don’t support teams in a division where the team’s cost of competition has morphed into a $50,000-$100,000 per event expenditure.
“We've been in business over 60 years, so this is a business model and a sport that will endure,” stated NASCAR CEO and Chairman Brian France in a rare public appearance during the Lowes Motor Speedway Media Tour last week. “And yes, there are changing circumstances with economy that we have not seen this difficult in a generation, and that is making … it's accelerating our efforts to take cost out of the system. You hear that from us frequently. Changes incidentally, and lack thereof, also help in the cost model. The more things we have to change often cost money in the short run, so we're trying to hold the line on that, as well.”
Holding the line, or reducing costs, can and will eventually help the Truck Series teams and competitors. Unfortunately, for many of the division’s top stars like Setzer, Sprague, Musgrave and Skinner, changes such as creating better media exposure opportunities for the division’s sponsors and improved race payouts apparently may not be coming soon enough.
Stay tuned – regardless of who’s behind the wheel and how good the racing is, the main story for NASCAR and especially the Truck Series this season is going to be the 
economy as short fields and empty seats could dominate the headlines. Unless NASCAR steps up with more creative and innovative financial and promotional thinking other than France’s “hold the line” strategy, the sport of major league stock car racing, and the Truck Series in particular, could be in real trouble.
In the meantime, if you want to go Truck Series racing and need a proven driver for a 13-race schedule, give Setzer a call. For that matter, Skinner, Sprague and Musgrave would be happy to take your call too. Right now, all of them - and a bunch more - are available.
