2024 CARS Tour Announcement

[ron.brown11]

Yesterday the ownership for the CARS Tour, Earnhardt, Burton, Harvick & Justin Marks, made 2 major announcements. The first is that ZMAX will be the title sponsor for both the LMSC & the Pro Late Model series.Also Marcus Smith (SMI President), was also there for the press conference. As Smith & SMI have had a working relationship with the ZMAX Lubricants for several years (ZMAX Drag Strip in Charlotte), it makes sense that both were represented there. Plus, the press conference was held at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It's great that a regional racing series has landed a national sponsor. That will help the series, the teams & the track operators to be able to attract a wider fan base. All three will have a platform to try and generate more sponsors. This should be a win-win for all involved. 

The second was the announcement of the 2024 schedule. Included in that is that North Wilksboro will have 2 CARS Tour dates, with one of them again being during the Cup All Stars weekend. If you missed that race this year, it was fantastic, so having 2 of them in 2024 should be twice as nice. 

There is one thing that I think will be having the powers that be in Daytona, scratching their collective heads. Why was Marcus Smith so prominent at this press conference? The easy answer is because he owns N. Wilksboro and CMS. But that's not why the NASCAR hierarchy would be interested/concerned. I've said on here before, Bruton Smith really wanted to start a rival series to the Cup series. I still think the Marcus Smith & SMI would love to fulfill daddy's wish. If the new TV/Streaming contracts don't get split to where the teams/drivers get a bigger percentage, and the Charter system doesn't become permanent, SMI could swoop in and pilfer a lot of the Cup teams. Oh, and they'd already have a built in driver farm system in place, with the CARS Tour Series. I am not a conspiracy theorist by any means, and find it hard to think that the ownership on the CARS Tour (all are involved heavily in NASCAR), would want to jump ship. But hey, they are all business owners too, and money still pays the bills. Add in the fact that NASCAR did 3 things that could easily streamline things for an exit if SMI were to ever start a rival series. First, they consolidated NASCAR & ISC into 1 entity. The second happened a couple of years ago. They bought back all outstanding stock. The third happened last year, when the started talking to a major bank, that department to which NASCAR was working with, specializes in helping to buy/sell major corporations. Without those first 2 things happening, I wouldn't give the third thing a second thought. It's a whole lot easier to sell 1 major entity than two. It's also  MUCH easier to sell that entity, if there are no private shareholders that you have to convince to sell their shares. Who knows, maybe Marcus Smith can do what Bruton wasn't able to. As I said on here a while back, the next 18 months could be very interesting, or a big nothing burger...

 

[NickHolt]

Sounds like there's some big-time stuff going on behind the scenes...

 

[ron.brown11]

3 hours ago, NickHolt said:

Sounds like there's some big-time stuff going on behind the scenes...

 

Nick, I personally think that nothing will come from all of this. But I say that, predominately because I feel like NASCAR will give the teams/drivers a healthier slice of the money pie. I think if that happens, we probably won't hear much about the RTA staying public, with their demands about making the charter system permanent. I still think that will continue behind the scene though. Especially now that charters are starting to be really expensive to come by. Dale Jr wants one. Brad K says that RFK wants to expand. Trackhouse needs another one for SVG for 2025. Spire bought up another one already this year, at a pretty hefty price. This is exactly why the RTA has wanted charters to become permanent. It gives them a lot more residual value, if they choose to get out of NASCAR. But that only works for them IF NASCAR is still an operating/popular product. If SMI (or anyone else not named NASCAR) doesn't start a rival series. So if they were to decide to close up, then those really expensive charters are worthless.  It's obvious that NASCAR is no longer a dictatorship that it was under Big Bill & JR, so now it just comes down to how "flexible" NASCAR is willing to be. How much is NASCAR willing to swallow. There are a lot of chess pieces on the board, and I'm not yet sure who has the next move. If nothing else, it's gives us something to speculate about for the next 12 months. But I still believe that things will work out, and NASCAR continues.