Ganassi team in total disarray, to get worse

John Fernandez left for his office at Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates on Tuesday expecting a normal work day. It was anything but.

By 2:30 p.m., his title officially read "former managing director." He was one of 71 employees caught in the backlash when owner Chip Ganassi shut down the No. 40 team of Dario Franchitti.

Ganassi said the move came due to lack of sponsorship. He said he couldn't afford to keep running "this out of my pocket" at the cost of hurting his other two teams: the No. 42 of Juan Pablo Montoya and No. 41 of Reed Sorenson.

"I had to put a stop to it," Ganassi told The Associated Press.

The shutdown reinforced what many have been saying for months, that the Ganassi organization is in disarray, lacking a sense of direction and continuity among the three teams that now have been reduced to two.

That Montoya went through three crew chiefs in less than two months should have been a hint.

But what happened at Ganassi was only a microcosm of what is happening in NASCAR. Tough economic times have left organizations struggling to find sponsors willing to pay the $20 million to $25 million it takes to run a top-notch program.

It has left many with pockets not nearly as deep as Ganassi's struggling to find sponsors willing to pay $10 million to $15 million.

It has made the gap between the haves and have-nots wider than ever. [Editor's Note: Clearly Ganassi is a have-not team and he might be better off deep-sixing it. How many years can one run at the back and look like a loser?] Unless NASCAR can find a way to keep costs down — and opening up testing is not one of them — we are looking at a day in the near future when only 43 cars, maybe fewer, compete for the 43 spots.

"I do think the sport as a whole is going to struggle," said Fernandez, who was the head of Dodge Motorsports before moving to Ganassi less than two years ago. "The economy definitely is affecting it.

"If you look at what's going on in the sport, you've got three teams dominating: Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway and Joe Gibbs Racing. For organizations like Ganassi and Penske and everybody else … it's very difficult." More at ESPN.com