| 644 |
Kevin Harvick |
|
| 618 |
Matt Kenseth |
-26 |
| 585 |
Greg Biffle |
-59 |
| 570 |
Jimmie Johnson |
-74 |
| 558 |
Clint Bowyer |
-86 |
| 538 |
Jeff Burton |
-106 |
| 521 |
Mark Martin |
-123 |
| 510 |
Tony Stewart |
-134 |
| 505 |
Paul Menard |
-139 |
| 502 |
Kurt Busch |
-142 |
| 482 |
Jeff Gordon |
-162 |
| 482 |
Scott Speed |
-162 |
| 505 |
Carl Edwards |
|
| 464 |
Brad Keselowski |
-41 |
| 457 |
Brian Vickers |
-48 |
| 449 |
Justin Allgaier |
-56 |
| 424 |
Kyle Busch |
-81 |
| 340 |
Todd Bodine |
|
| 336 |
Timothy Peters |
-4 |
| 295 |
Jason White |
-45 |
| 292 |
Aric Almirola |
-48 |
| 272 |
Kyle Busch |
-68 |
| 33 |
Kevin Conway |
| 4 |
Terry Cook |
|
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NASCAR Cup News
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Written by Jay W Pennell
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Sunday, 15 March 2009 07:01 |
 The NFL has one, the MLB has one, the NHL has one. If NASCAR truly wants to be considered a major player in sports, it better start taking care of those that got them to where they are today. NASCAR enjoys multi-million dollar television and sponsorship packages, the drivers live a life many of us could barely imagine and yet there is nothing set up to provide for the stars of the sport once they leave the spotlight.
Saturday’s 3rd annual Legends Helping Legends event at the Memory Lane Motorsports and Automotive Museum honored former crew chief Jake Elder and brought together some of the sport’s biggest names of yesterday in order to raise money for one of the sport’s best mechanics. With no pension plan or retirement fund, Elder, like many of those gathered on Saturday, has been forced to deal with the complications and expenses of aging with little to no help from the sanctioning body he helped secure a future for.
At a time when NASCAR is promoting its history more and more in preparation for the opening of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C., perhaps it is time for the sport to reexamine their policy towards their former stars.
Since drivers and crew members are considered independent contractors to NASCAR, the sanctioning body has no obligation to assist with anyone’s retirement fund or pension plan once their time in the sport has passed. Unlike the NFL, MLB, NHL and other professional sports, there is no organization in place to look out for the well being of both drivers and crews. Attempts in the past to organize – such as the Professional Drivers Association – were quickly squashed and put to rest.
“Well I don’t think they should burn bridges behind them,” former driver Rex White said of the sanctioning body. “I think they should look back and honor the people – the fans and the people – that helped NASCAR get where they are today. Without a doubt they should do it.”
“It just seems as though a lot of us helped build this sport and its one of the few sports that people helped build that there is nothing there for you after you retire,” former driver Dave Marcis explained. Truly an independent, Marcis spent the majority of his career working on his own race cars and doing things his way. “I don’t feel they owe me anything. I did what I wanted to do, I was an independent, I enjoyed racing, I made a living do it, but making a living then and just getting by and the money they make today, there’s just no comparison. A lot of us just made ends meat, we didn’t get ahead really, but we were doing something we loved to do.”
As Marcis pointed out, there truly is no comparison when considering the difference in what drivers take home today and what the legends made throughout their careers. The only current Cup Series driver on hand during Saturday’s event, David Ragan has earned a total of $10,605,499 and is only in his third full season. Compare that to Marcis, who competed in NASCAR for 36 years and made only $7,546,092. Something just does not seem right about that, just ask “Tiger” Tom Pistone.
“What gets me is all we need is one Cup driver, that’s all we need, and we can raise millions,” the almost 80-year-old former driver said with a fiery voice. “It’s a shame we have to have all the old guys come over to help. It just breaks my heart to see that we have to help people, they all need help and that’s what we need.”
The eleven-year Cup Series veteran scored two wins in his career, earning a total of $45,683 – that is $24,450 less than finishing 43rd in Atlanta last weekend. An outspoken critic of NASCAR and its policy towards older drivers and crew members, Pistone is one of the biggest advocates of giving back to those that built the sport.
“I had a radio program last year,” Pistone told HardcoreRaceFans.com. “I had eight shows last year and that’s all I preached about. I talked to Bruton Smith, he was on the program for about an hour, and I said let’s raise $100 million and take the first one hundred race drivers and give them a million a piece – even if they’re gone, give it to their family. That’s what I can’t understand. These young drivers that race today, they should donate 1% and give it to a foundation – just like Jake Elder today, and there’s other guys. Dick May, I just heard he’s sick, there’s a lot of guys, and they’re real sick, like Neil Castle he needs help, there’s a lot of guys that need help. I don’t think we should start a foundation, I just think we should start something.”
At a time when NASCAR is gearing up for the opening of the Hall of Fame and has an official Foundation set up for a variety charitable causes –including funds for the well-being of animals – it seems the sport would be taking a closer look at helping those that got them to where they are today.
“It’s hard to say,” Buz McKim, Historian of the NASCAR Hall of Fame said when asked about setting up a fund for retired legends. “These guys were considered independent contractors when they raced. I guess NASCAR is kind of caught in the middle, but with the amount of money that floats around the sport nowadays there could be some kind of benevolent fund set up – I don’t know who would do it or how it would be set up – but it seems like someone would step forward and say, ‘That’s a charity I’d like to get involved with.’ We have charities for animals and abused children and women – which are all great – but this is another aspect of the sport that hasn’t had its own foundation developed. Hopefully, in the future someone will come along and say these are the guys that made the sport and this is a charity I want to go ahead and get involved in.”
While many that were gathered at the Memory Lane Motorsports and Automotive Museum that day seemed to support a fund for older drivers, the legendary Donnie Allison thinks otherwise. One of the founding member of the Alabama Gang spent twenty years competing at NASCAR’s top level, making just over one million dollars. Despite that fact, Allison believes the responsibility lies with the drivers and crew members, not NASCAR.
“NASCAR gave us the opportunity to do something we loved to do,” Allison pointed out. “They weren’t obligated to us. NASCAR in their way looks out for a lot of the older drivers the best they can. Financially, they gave us the opportunity to make a little bit of money and it was up to us to do the right thing with it. A lot of people say they should have something for the old drivers, a retirement fund or something like that, well I feel like there ought to be a retirement fund, but I feel the drivers and the car owners were the ones that should have put this together and it never was done. If the drivers like me, Bobby (Allison) and Richard (Petty) and those guys didn’t take care of our own retirement that was our own fault. I hate to sound mean about it or anything like that, but I don’t think NASCAR should be held liable for that.”
For young David Ragan, the only current driver at the event, the fate of the legendary drivers is simply a matter of respect. More of a fan in attendance than a star signing autographs, Ragan understood that figuring out a way to help the legends of the sport was no simple task.
“I don’t know exactly what the right thing to do is,” Ragan told HardcoreRaceFans.com. “There probably could be some kind of program that can dwindle down from a lot of the big money that is in the sport today to the guys that helped us get here. You’d have to do a lot of research and crunching numbers to figure out how to do it, but just show some respect. I don’t know if that’s by showing financial support or by being around the race track or different things, but as long as we never forget where the sport was at fifty years ago we just have to keep that in our memory.”
“It isn’t up to NASCAR to get those guys to come out here,” former driver Geoff Bodine pointed out. “They’re very busy. The NASCAR schedule is very demanding. This is an off weekend and they don’t get too many off weekends throughout the year, still I believe in the payback theory. I feel very blessed to be in this sport and this business. Many years have done many things for me. I feel very blessed that I’m still alive after my accident in 2000 and it’s just kind of a natural thing to be involved in something like this. You know, the younger drivers, you’ll have to ask them where they were this weekend. I’m going defend them a little bit, they are busy and deserve a little time off, but this is a very worthy cause to get involved in and in life you have to pay back some times.”
Saturday’s event was more than a worthy cause. The 3rd annual Legends Helping Legends fundraiser not only brought some of NASCAR’s biggest stars out for fans of all ages to meet, it also raised awareness of many of the sport’s founding members’ fate. Perhaps now is the time for NASCAR to step up to the plate and implement a safety net for the men and women that sacrificed to build the sport to where it is today. 
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