Speed key in slow economy

Shortly after the gates opened at Chicagoland Speedway two weeks ago, Max Jones gathered two dozen crewmembers from Yates Racing in a 3-foot-wide hallway for an impromptu meeting. The team squeezed into one of its haulers to learn it wasn't being squeezed out. "The rumor in the garage was we're going out of business, and I had to tell them, 'Guys, we're fine, we're about to sign a deal,' " says Jones, co-owner of Yates Racing with Doug Yates. "There's a lot of doom and gloom out there." For those whose livelihood depends on racing stock cars, life can be as skittish these days as it is for those riding the stock market, and for the same reasons. The lifeblood of NASCAR teams is the corporate sponsorship fueling the budgets — ranging up to $20 million to $30 million a season for a championship-caliber driver, about triple the... [read full story]