Racing Newsmaker: Mike Helton

NASCAR announced last week it would limit to four the number of teams a car owner can field in the Nextel Cup Series.

• Photos

It also said it would restrict testing to five tracks -- Daytona International Speedway, Lowe's Motor Speedway, Richmond International Raceway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

NASCAR president Mike Helton talked about those changes during a press conference at the Phoenix International Raceway. Here are excerpts of that press conference:

Question: A couple teams, Roush Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, have contracts for five teams in 2006. How does your plan to restrict teams to four entries affect that?

Helton: There's a cap. (We) understand that that cap -- if we institute it cleanly in '06 -- would put a couple of teams in a bad position, and we don't want to do that. So we're going to grandfather Roush in, and then Hendrick. For example, he had a two-year deal with Terry Labonte in the (No.) 44 car. We know going into '06 that Rick Hendrick is going to have five cars on the racetrack at least ten times. Once we get through all of the details of working that out with those two organizations for '06, then it's a matter of reaching that cap of four in a reasonable period of time in the future. Once we reach that cap, and as it applies to everybody else beginning in '06, there will still be a feature that will allow a four-car team to run a fifth car in a program that is getting a rookie ready for the following season with limited number of races attached to it. So it would be possible for someone to have five teams at one time, but that would be under a limitation as to who the driver could be, and the number of races you could put that car out there.

Question: How does this change anything since officially a car owner already is restricted to two cars? Officially, Jack Roush only owns two cars; Mark Martin owns one, his mother owns one and Roush Racing president Geoff Smith owns one.

Helton: Let me clear up something on the two-car deal. We never had a limit on two cars as far as who could own them. That limit was around the Winner's Circle Program. And that's when you saw other people in the same camp be listed as a car owner, but the entity itself was basically driving a ship, like Jeff Gordon on the 48 car or Georgetta Roush on the 16 car. That's all that ever existed before. There's a million different definitions of who owns what out there. We're not after an IRS-type definition. We're after a definition that makes it work in the industry. We have no desire to stop Yates and Roush from supplying engines, Hendrick from chassis and engines, Richard Childress, Joe Gibbs. Those organizations are actually making the sport better.

Question: If a team wants to test outside NASCAR's five selected tracks, will they have to do it with old tires or tires that aren't part of Goodyear's rotation?

Helton: You'd have to ask the crew guys. That's not the information we get, though. Part of the analysis of whether or not we wanted to go through the exercise of changing the tire relationships in the industry, we did spend a lot of time with owners, with Goodyear and trying to look at a model as to what difference it would make. And it's significant.

Question: NASCAR is moving toward leasing tires to keep teams from testing away from NASCAR tracks. Why?

Helton: Tire leasing is nothing new to motorsports. But what will happen in '06 in our national series is Goodyear will show up at the racetrack with all of the race tires that will be used at the event. And when the event is over, Goodyear will leave with every tire that was used at the racetrack for the event. If it coincides with our new test program, Goodyear will be at tests to provide tires for testing, but no team will leave with those tires after the test is over with, and that's how the leasing program will work. The economic package of it and everything, those things we're working out with Goodyear and the race teams. I'm confident that the economics is going to actually work out better for the race teams, because teams are not now going to be buying enormous amounts of tires knowing that they are going to take them home after it's over with and go do something with them anyway. We'll help the teams minimize the number of tires that they even mount up at a regular racetrack. They can't use a 2006 tire to go and do anything with, other than what we do at a racetrack, and the six tests.

Question: Do your limits cost people their jobs?

Helton: You've got to go back to the announcement, and we've said already today that we are going to minimize what Jack has to do to beat this cap, and we're looking at a reasonable time period. In that reasonable time period, people retire, people relocate, people go off and do other jobs, teams actually add employees. So if we do this right, and our intentions are to sit down privately with Jack and bang out all of these details to where he understands what's coming and we work with him, and I think it actually minimizes the number of people that have to leave Roush Racing.