NASCAR sets car cap at four next season

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Big-money teams will be allowed to field only four cars under a cap limit set by NASCAR on Thursday, a move that infuriated the five-car Roush Racing organization.

The limit goes into effect next season, but NASCAR said it would work to set a timeline for compliance for teams with more than four entries. Jack Roush is the only owner with five teams, all of which are in the 10-man Chase for the championship that crowns the Nextel Cup champion.

"It is hard for Jack not to believe that there is a laser bull's-eye on his forehead," Roush Racing president Geoff Smith said.

The move had been expected since last month, when NASCAR chairman Brian France said he was looking to limit the amount of cars one owner can have. Until Thursday's announcement, no one was certain what the cap would be.

Smith said Roush officials were told in a recent private meeting with NASCAR that a "grandfather clause" would be included to allow them to keep their five teams at least through the 2009 season. All of their contracts with sponsors and drivers run through then, but what happens when those deals expire remains murky.

"Our impression is if every one of those sponsors wants to continue past '09, they can," Smith said. "If some of the sponsors don't want to continue on but every driver wants to continue past '09, that would be OK, too. But it's very unlikely that all of that will happen.

"But the bottom line is we will have to go to four. It won't be next year, it won't be for a few years, but we will have to get there."

The top teams in NASCAR are multicar operations with budgets that soon could be closing in on $100 million a year. It's nearly impossible for single-car teams to compete against the big-money groups, which pool resources to gain additional tests, information sharing, multiple sponsorships, and, sometimes, on-track cooperation among teammates.

But in arguing for the cap, France said the big teams are an obstacle to owners contemplating coming into the sport.

"We don't like the fact that the independent teams, or in particular a new owner looking at coming in the door, have a daunting task to compete, and the concept of having to have five teams, three teams," France said. "That means the opportunities aren't there for young drivers. It means opportunities aren't there to create the next Rick Hendrick."

• Roush has won the past two titles with Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch and he got all five of his drivers into the Chase.

• Hendrick has a four-man team that includes Jimmie Johnson, second in points with two races left, and four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, the winningest driver outside the Chase with four victories.

• Combined, Roush and Hendrick drivers have won 23 of 33 races this season.

• All 10 drivers in the Chase are from multicar teams.

• At 21st in the standings, Ricky Rudd is the highest-ranked driver from a single-car team.

Not all multicar-team owners dislike the cap.

"I think it will be good for the sport," said Richard Childress, who fields three teams. "Personally, I could never have gotten into the sport — the way it is today — like I did when I got in as a driver-car owner."