“Ultimately, It’s Just Hard” – NASCAR Team President Goes Off on X as He Spills the Harsh Reality of Making a Career in Motorsports

“They want to have a path to profitability. That is not a check right now.” These were NASCAR president Steve Phelps’s words during a Zoom call when he addressed the growing financial concern among the Cup Series team owners. The 36 NASCAR teams under the charter system aren’t minting profitable Cup Series races, which is somewhat the opposite of what the charter system is all about.

Following the financial crunch and the continual demands from the employees for pay hikes, an Xfinity Series team president has now come forward. Alpha Prime Racing’s president Tommy Joe Martins didn’t hold back his thoughts and took to X, disclosing the brutal reality of being a motorsports driver that many fail to see.

Jones took a sarcastic jibe over the disparity in wages between an independent contractor and a millionaire-owned team and wrote, “Wait so you’re telling me a millionaire-owned, manufacturer-backed team getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per race pays higher wages & benefits than an independent team with half their budget coming from the prize money? Dude that’s so unfair. Might as well quit.“

He emphasized the fact that NASCAR is aware of the financial crunch, and the people are still asking for pay raises and wrote, “The literal president of NASCAR says in a press conference “We know all the teams are losing money” and yet everyone is talking about how hard it is to get a pay raise? Like maybe those things could be related? The whole sport is built around the teams being disposable.”

Jones explained that if the sponsors back off, then that won’t work in anyone’s favor and wrote, “If sponsors/drivers/agencies refuse to pay more money, and the costs for literally every part/piece/tire continually go up, how does that work out for any of us?”

Jones pondered upon his past and explained how he worked without even getting paid in the beginning and wrote, “I didn’t get paid a dollar for driving a car until I did a start & park for @MBMMotorsports. I worked 7 years as an instructor so I could use every dollar we raised to get more opportunities. I had to explain to NASCAR PR that they made more from the sport than I did IN THE CAR.”

The Xfinity Series team president concluded by giving a subtle reality check that things in motorsports aren’t smooth as one would envision and they have to remain steadfast in dire situations like these and wrote, “Ultimately the finances of this stuff are 10 kinds of screwed up. I’ve talked about it publicly for years, and I’ve tried to grind it out and stay in the sport to help *hopefully* make it better. But ultimately, it’s just hard. And you have to be really tough to stick in it.”

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Alpha Prime Racing’s president gave the bitter-sweet reality of having a career in motorsports. However, the reason behind the crew’s demand is the excessively long NASCAR calendar that doesn’t align with the pay.

The unjustified payback of NASCAR crew members

NASCAR conducts one of the lengthiest seasons across several sporting calendars and the salaries paid to the employees working for different team seem quite unjustified in that comparison. Spanning over nine months, the NASCAR calendar having 36 races has a burnout effect that is experienced by several members of the crew. Many have expressed their reluctance to work as the season nears its conclusion.

The ton of expenditure done by the teams on the Next Gen cars had a huge impact on their financials as compared to the benefits reaped, and the teams with relatively shallow pockets are the ones who suffer the most. On top of that, if any sponsor backs off, the team is not far from being doomed.

NASCAR has signed the media rights deal worth $7.7 billion in a bid to include more revenue streams for the teams and to diversify their dependence, preventing them from shattering down. Do you think that once the deal comes into effect in 2025, it will bring in more money to smaller teams than before?

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