(Charlotte Observer)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Dale Earnhardt Inc. isn’t close to closing its doors after losing yet another driver and sponsor on Tuesday.
But Max Siegel, DEI’s president of global operations, can’t say for certain whether the organization that has had more setbacks than possibly any in the Sprint Cup garage the past year and a half will field two, three or four cars in 2009.
“I don’t want to get into the speculation thing because it’s going to do absolutely no good,” Siegel said after the announcement that Paul Menard and sponsor Menards are moving to Yates Racing next year.
“I can’t predict the future and it’s not going to do any good for our employees to put it out there.”
From the outside looking in the perception isn’t good. It began last year with the announcement Dale Earnhardt Jr. was leaving for Hendrick Motorsports and his sponsor, Budweiser, for Gillett Evernham Motorsports.
It continued this summer when Mark Martin announced he will leave the No. 8 U.S. Army car for HMS in 2009. Soon, according to sources, there will be the announcement that Army is leaving forRyan Newman at Stewart-Haas Racing.
Regan Smith hasn’t had a full-time sponsor in the No. 01 all season and there hasn’t been an announcement of a deal for next year.
With Menard taking the sponsorship of his father’s home improvement company to Yates, DEI is left with one full-time sponsor — Bass Pro Shops on Martin Truex’s No. 1 car — committed to next season.
And Truex isn’t committed past next season.
“This entire company and our management team has endured more body blows over the last two years than most people do their entire career,” Siegel said. “We made no bones about it we’ve been dealing with a perception issue forever.
“It’s a process. It’s a painful process and we all live it every single day.”
Losing Menard wasn’t the most painful part of Tuesday’s announcement. In 68 Cup races the 28-year-old has one top-10, no top-5s and no wins. He’s led only 27 laps and never finished higher in points than the 28th spot he currently holds.
Losing the sponsorship was painful. Menard’s backing is what made him an asset for Yates Racing, which has gone all year without full sponsorship for Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland and has not locked up deals for 2009.
“What can I say?” Siegel said. “You lose a sponsor and it has an impact on your bottom line. … I’m not trying to turn it into an economic discussion, but the economy is bad and we’ve got families that work hard every week.”
Siegel said DEI will continue to run four cars the remainder of this season and will do everything possible to maintain that in ‘09. He said all options are being kept open, including merger with another organization.
Robby Gordon Racing is the most recent team linked to partnership with DEI, but team owner Robby Gordon said during last week’s test at Lowe’s Motor Speedway that wasn’t his focus.
Siegel said upper management will spend the next couple of days formatting a plan.
“For me, we’re focused on continuing to work hard to sustain a race program,” he said. “The reality of the situation for us as managers is that it just makes us work harder.”
Siegel said the economy could have an impact on the sponsorship model for the entire garage. He foresees more teams running week to week with different sponsors as Yates has done much of this season.
The biggest difference between Yates and DEI is Yates is basically an extension of Roush Fenway Racing, which supplies all of the engines, chassis, engineering and marketing for its fellow Ford team.
DEI has an engine-building partnership with Richard Childress Racing, but supplies everything else itself.
But Siegel reminded that for the most part DEI has made gains from an infrastructure, personnel, equipment and operations standpoint since Earnhardt’s departure.
“I don’t know if you rebound overnight by losing the sport’s most popular driver and everything the company went through with that,” he said. “We’re not even a year removed from that.
“From the public perception standpoint people like to pile on us, [saying] ‘This is the demise of DEI.’ We’re between a rock and a hard place to be quite honest.”