Statement from TMS President Gossage on NASCAR charter system

The following is a statement from Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage about today’s announcement from NASCAR regarding a charter system for teams beginning this year that will guarantee starting spots in races for all full-time organizations as well as provide additional benefits.

 

“This announcement is really important in giving our sport stability long term. Right now if you own a team and you want to sell it you own nothing but a building and the equipment in it. Nothing else of value can be offered to some potential buyer, so all the money they’ve invested through the years leading up to that point really doesn’t mean anything. With the charter system, it gives you equity ownership in the team. It gives it value. You can sell portions of it or all of it to another person or investor. For buyers and sellers, it makes it a market that is really going to create some value for the team owners so that when they are done with their racing days the organization has some value just like a baseball or football team has value to their owners.

 

“It ensures our teams have solid financial footing. The cost to go racing is so expensive. To run up front, you are talking $25 to $26 million a year to keep that car on the track and competitive because the technology changes from week to week. It’s hard to stay ahead of those costs. All sports struggle with this, but our sport more than any has that dilemma and NASCAR is trying to fill that gap to ensure that we have good solid competitive teams that are able to get on the race track every week and perform to put on the kind of races we enjoy at Texas Motor Speedway.” 

TMS PR