Andy Petree on potential cutbacks by auto manufacturers in NASCAR

"There’s no substitute for money. This sport runs on money and that’s really what it comes down to. These teams have become so sophisticated in the past 15 years that they can provide their own technology as long as they have enough money to fund it. And back in the day before that, the car companies would provide a lot of the technology that you couldn’t afford to buy. The technology was probably more important 10-15 years ago; today the money is the most important thing. We used to take our cars up to GM when I was with Chevrolet and Oldsmobile teams, we would use their facilities like the shaker rigs, the VHF (vehicle handling facility) and wind tunnels. Now those things are available here, all you have to do is pay at the gate and go on in and use them. The wind tunnels are here in stock car country, and so are the 7-post rigs. Most of the top teams have those in-house. But it takes money to run them. The team owners, I would be a little nervous about the position that the car companies are in to be able to provide the resources to develop that technology. That being said though, I believe this is probably the best place for the car companies to spend their marketing dollars, and hopefully this will be one of the last places they make their cuts."

What can they provide other than money?

"The biggest thing that they provide is the engine technology. Teams can’t really design and cast their own engines, and blocks, and heads and that sort of thing. NASCAR has a channel for all of that. It comes through the manufacturers so that will be a piece of that technology that they will provide no matter how much money they were giving the teams. Teams couldn’t quite replace that. That part of it is probably always going to be there."