Many NASCAR teams in worse sponsorship situation than when economy collapsed in 2008

NASCAR teams entered the 2009 season with a bleak outlook in financial and sponsorship terms, but the outlook for this season doesn’t look any better.

In fact, it might be worse.

As the 2008 NASCAR season came to a close, the United States economy was on the verge of disaster, and its struggles quickly affected NASCAR teams.

Many teams had to lay off large parts of their staff, and the Sprint Cup Series went from having nearly 43 fully funded teams to questions about whether enough cars would show up on a race weekend to fill the field.

It turned out that every race still had a full field, but more and more teams showed up to run just the first few laps in a race and then head home while collecting the prize money. Even then, cars with mostly full sponsorship packages filled the top 35 guaranteed spots in a race.

Now cars that finished last season in the Chase might not even have full sponsorship for the 2012 season. Matt Kenseth, who finished fourth in the points standings last year, has sponsorship lined up for less than half of the season so far.

Several teams are still looking to put together a sponsorship package to fund the entire season, and other teams have completely shut down.

Red Bull Racing has fielded two cars since 2008, but it folded at the end of the 2011 season for financial reasons. TRG Motorsports won’t return in 2012 after fielding one full-time car for the past three seasons, and Front Row Motorsports, has yet to announce its plans for the upcoming season.

In addition, some of the big-time teams are cutting back, as well. Roush-Fenway Racing will run Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the #6 car for the Daytona 500, but it currently doesn’t have any sponsorship for the race, and the #6 car could very well be shut down for the remainder of the season.

The #33 driven by Clint Bowyer for the past three seasons will cease to exist as Bowyer moves to the #15 car for Michael Waltrip Racing. Richard Petty Motorsports recently tabbed Aric Almirola to drive the #43 car, but it doesn’t have any sponsorship as of yet. Even Tommy Baldwin Racing’s two cars currently don’t have a sponsor.

All of these changes could lead to a season where less than 30 teams have sponsorship to run the entire schedule.

Last season 30 teams ran all 36 races. A few others attempted to run every race and didn’t qualify on time. However, this season there could be cars in the top 35 in the points standings that won’t have the money to show up at the track.

TV ratings improved in the 2011 season, and attendance numbers started to stabilize after several years of freefall. At least it appears fan interest in the sport has stabalized, if not started to grow once again.

Hopefully this is rock bottom and money will start flowing back into the sport throughout the 2012 season and years beyond. But, the current situation might be the toughest stretch NASCAR teams have ever faced.