Two weekends ago at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, NASCAR president Mike Helton said that, for now, there was no ill will between the sanctioning body and the consortium of multi-car Sprint Cup teams known as the Race Team Alliance.
But today, in a wide-ranging interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Helton’s boss – NASCAR Chairman/CEO Brian France – addressed the RTA’s formation by saying “we didn’t think it was necessary.”
“We think the benefits they would arrive at with this association would be much smaller than they do,” France continued. “They’re smart guys and they may figure out some things that we’re not aware of.
“But on balance, I would say two things – one, the idea that they don’t know how many employees they have or what their costs are and this is a way to tackle that, that’s terrific. We certainly want them to get those kinds of answers for sure.
“The one thing that is central to NASCAR though, is when you deal with one voice, that would probably be the worst thing we could ever do – and that’s to listen to one voice, even it was a consensus voice. Every decision that we’ve ever made that was important, the more input, the more people we heard from, the better the result.”
France answered another question by stating that while NASCAR would respect the owners involved in the RTA being “entitled to approach the business in different ways,” the sanctioning body planned to “go down the road dealing with all of the team owners – not most of them, not the big ones, but all of them.”
“…Whenever we do something – and we’re working on all kinds of things now – these are never simple things,” he added. “Drivers, crew chiefs, engineers – we always pick their brains on things because it’s not always black or white if we go one way or that way on whether it actually lowers costs or it actually improves racing.
“The last thing we would want to do is not talk to everybody so where we can find where the truth lies.”
This month’s emergence of the RTA, which is made up of nine of the sport’s most powerful teams, has generated a wide range of opinions.
Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, drivers for RTA squad Hendrick Motorsports, insist that the group’s efforts will help the sport. On the other side, race track owner Bruton Smith has expressed his annoyance.
So far, the RTA has remained silent on its long-term agenda outside of creating cost-cutting initiatives for its members. Its chairman, Michael Waltrip Racing co-owner Rob Kauffman, has said that the RTA wants to take a collaborative stance with NASCAR.
“…That’s the high road and the right road, so why do anything other than that?,” Kauffman said in a recent interview with NBCSN contributor Nate Ryan.
“There are other questions that are obvious and will be resolved over time. To the extent we’re a party to those, we’ll try to be productive and collaborative. We’ll see how it plays out. It makes for a less exciting story, but a better business.”
