Want  a NASCAR ride?  Bring $14M

There simply isn't the money to keep supporting teams, or drivers, who can't support themselves.

So though Canadian Patrick Carpentier, who ran 25 races last year with Gillett Evernham Motorsports (now Richard Petty Motorsports), had some offers to continue his career, they all came with a Catch 22 — he had to bring along funding.

"We had a few calls from different teams and stuff, but most of the teams were looking for some money or somebody that could bring in some cash later on down the road in a year or so," said Carpentier, on the phone while taking a lunch break from Sunday contractor classes.

One offer was five or six races for $1-million US. "The cost is [actually] much higher than that but we had a pretty good deal there from some sponsorship that was already on board with a team, and we only had to come up with a million.

"But usually the price is around $400,000 per event."

With 36 races on a full NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule, $400,000 an event adds up to $14.4-million – and that kind of money not only doesn't grow on trees, it isn't coming out of any struggling corporations, either.

In other words, there was nothing Carpentier could do. There wasn't a million available. CBC.ca