One thing people will always need, especially in a down economy, is entertainment. For a lot of people, including you, Freak Nation, that entertainment comes in the form of motorsports. But at what cost?

The average Joe can’t really afford to take his family to the race when rising ticket prices and “captured audience” concession prices make it almost impossible.

Add to that the fact that more and more manufacturers are pulling support from race teams, making team or driver loyalty harder and harder to come by*.

The money has to come from somewhere. And if the trickle down effect continues to fall to the average Joe race fan, the one thing racing can’t afford to lose will fall away too: Attendance.

Someone please stop the bleeding!

* GM pulled out of drag racing, vacating many seats in NHRA’s Pro Stock class, just after their season ending awards banquet. Then last week, Honda shocked the international motorsports scene by removing themselves from Formula One. Just days later, they dropped their Team Honda involvement in AMA Superbikes. This weekend BOTH Suzuki and Subaru pulled their support from the World Rally Series, leaving Subaru’s support of the Rally America series in question. IndyCar insiders are getting nervous about Honda’s involvement in their paddock and nothing is comfy in the NASCAR world either. With no imminent bailout from the White House or Congress, the Big 3 could go bankrupt, leaving any bad news enormously possible come February for the Daytona 500 and beyond. Let's face it… NASCAR's technology has nothing do to with the cars in the dealerships today, meaning that a reorganization of their future greener technologies (which may become mandatory by our Government) could result in the slate wiped clean of all carburetors and out of date spending. What that means, if the Government wants to play ball, is that NASCAR would be wiped away with that slate. Anything is possible.