Looking ahead, Stewart-Haas anticipates a 5 percent savings on room rates for 2010, based on early negotiations, says Greg Park, the team’s chief financial officer.

Executives at Michael Waltrip Racing, operator of three Sprint Cup cars, offer a typical example of how the business of racing mirrors the rest of the economy. Last year, the organization slashed its workforce by 15 percent. Now, with 230 employees on hand, additional job cuts are unlikely. Instead, says CFO Larry Johns, the search for savings has become as relentless as the need for speed.

The company has cut salaries to bring them in line with industry averages and increased employee contributions for health insurance. They’re also constantly assessing what duties each job entails, adding responsibilities and shifting resources and positions to sales efforts whenever possible. That’s a direct response to increased demands from sponsors to demonstrate a return on their investment.

Are Salaries the Next Target?

Some experts say one obvious area offering a potential cost-cutting bonanza—driver salaries—has yet to be addressed. Big-money salaries moved beyond top stars such as Jeff Gordon and into the lower ranks of Sprint Cup teams as the sport exploded in the 1990s.

“In the last 10 years, there has probably been a 50 percent increase in drivers’ salaries,” says Trip Wheeler, an industry consultant. “Do we complain about CEO pay? Yes. Well, why aren’t we complaining about drivers’ pay?”

Labor costs for drivers and crew members alike soared during the sport’s boom times. With most teams headquartered in clusters in Cabarrus and Iredell counties (in North Carolina), crew members and other team workers often walked across the street, lured by escalating salaries.

When deep-pocketed Toyota came into the sport in 2007, it entered with a splash—and forced teams to spend ever-greater sums to attract top talent. And today? Working with the North Carolina Employers Association, 11 teams collaborated this year to provide media-salary information on a number of fixed positions, providing the foundation for a salary survey aimed at helping teams keep labor costs in check. Crew members’ salaries have leveled off or decreased during the past two years.

Many teams have cut costs by shutting down engine departments and instead contracting with megateams such as Hendrick for those services. Stewart-Haas, for example, has 145 employees and buys its engines and chassis from Hendrick. If it built its own engines, the team would need to hire another 60 workers. Consolidation, mergers, and outsourcing among owners—including Chip Ganassi, Richard Petty, George Gillett, and the Earnhardt family—have created similar payroll reductions.

Continued consumer malaise means more caution flags ahead for Nascar teams. Carlson, the Hendrick executive, says teams are prone to the same dilemmas facing the rest of the business world because every revenue source begins and ends with consumer spending: corporate sponsorships fueled by retail success, race purses dependent on ticket sales, and merchandising royalties generated by fans’ purchases of hats and T-shirts.

With median primary sponsorships expected to decline next season into the $10 million to $12 million range from the current $17 million, expect more number crunching and job cuts ahead.

“The money is not going to flow as free as it did,” says Ray Evernham, an ESPN analyst and former Nascar team owner. “And the guys who make their living only from racing are going to be in more trouble. It creates a greater disparity in competition.”