Earnhardt team lost $2M

There are predictions now in the garage that anywhere from 750 to 1,000 Sprint Cup crewmen might lose their jobs at the end of the season, as team owners pare down to the new economics. Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that his Nationwide/Busch team has lost $2 million a year the last two years, so next season that team will run a limited schedule and many crewmen will be leaving.

"Not only is there a lack of interest in sponsoring a Nationwide team — and that will probably get worse over the next year — but a guy who does come in might have a product that conflicts with a sponsorship you already have," Earnhardt said.

"I read that this was a correction more than a recession, that we've been living beyond our means … and we were simply employing more people than we needed. We had 80 to 100 people for two Nationwide teams, and that's just too many.

"A lot of us in this sport have lived in that excess." Winston Salem Journal