Toyota but one factor accelerating change in the business of racing

Late Saturday night, as Greg Biffle was celebrating his win at Darlington, someone in the media center was working on a sidebar.
In newspaper lingo, a sidebar is a story related to but not directly covering a particular event. Jim Utter, for instance, wrote at sidebar for The Observer Saturday night about runner-up finisher Jeff Gordon while I wrote the "lead" race story.
I was up in the press box, so I couldn't see who it was that asked Jack Roush about Toyota during the postrace interview. Undoubtedly, his sidebar regarded Dale Jarrett's signing with Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota for 2007.
The question, however, was general enough to allow Roush to go anywhere he wanted to with it - something like "How will Toyota change the way things are done in the garage?"
Here's some of what Roush had to say in response: "..."I know there was a lot to do in the papers last week about the fact that Toyota was not spending their money on race teams and was not going to create the imbalance that would exist if one manufacturer did more than another, but they're giving their money to Michael Waltrip and to the other teams that they've got started so their fingerprints are all over what's happening. They are in fact raiding the garage and that's going to have an impact.
"...I know we've talked to Ford about it. I've talked to NASCAR about it. One of the things that has made NASCAR competition so close and so interesting to all the fans is the fact that there is parity.
"There is parity among the drivers' ability at the very top. There's parity technically among the teams and there's parity among the manufacturers with regard to what they've been able to do or willing to do with supporting the teams and with bringing technology.
"But Toyota has a chance of breaking that parity and we'll just have to see what happens."
A couple of things about that give me pause. And this is not only about what Roush had to say, because he merely voiced an opinion that we're hearing a lot of these days.
First, there's this business of "raiding" the garage. As I said in part of the Monday Darlington follow-up stuff we did in the paper, doesn't it stand to reason that anybody coming into the sport to form a new team is going to try to hire good people away from current teams? Where else do you find good people?
As Roush Racing and Hendrick Motorsports and other multicar teams grew from two to three to four and even to five teams, didn't they sometimes go to other teams to find employees for their staff additions?
You certainly can't expect Toyota team owners to populate their staffs completely with people who haven't been in the Cup garage, not if they want to be competitive any time soon.
Then there is the whole "parity" issue. Roush has a point there, in the sense that if it becomes a matter of one manufacturer subsidizing its teams to a degree that no other manufacturer can or is willing to do, the balance is going to be upset.
But couldn't it just as truthfully be argued that the exact same thing has already happened in the sport?
Substitute "team owner" for "manufacturer" in that previous paragraph and see if you don't agree.
Perhaps "subsidizing" is not the correct verb, since it's not that Roush or Rick Hendrick or other multicar team owners are spending their own millions to support their three- to five-car teams.
Sponsors provide much of that money, sponsors who want to be associated with winners and are willing to pay $15 million or $20 million to get it.
The rise of multicar teams in the sport has certainly changed the competitive balance. Single-car teams can't keep up these days, not because the people who work for them aren't good racers. The business model has changed.
A sponsor who might have to spend $15 million for 36 races on a single-car team could come to Roush and spend $10 million and be part of five cars, and get five drivers to make appearances and do commercials.
The buzz in the garage right now is that Toyota is offering "cut-rate" full-season sponsorship opportunities. Michael Waltrip, for instance, could sell a sponsor 36 races for $8-$10 million instead of up to twice that much. He'd make up the difference because Toyota is either paying him more directly or is paying indirectly by doing many of the engineering and car development functions for all three Toyota team owners instead of having each owner having to do that on his own.
I don't know if that's what is happening or not. But if it is, isn't that just another example of changing the business model?
If I am a sponsor and somebody tells me they can get the job done for 36 races for $10 million, there'd better be a good explanation as to why that wouldn't work for the team I'm currently giving $20 million to.
Roush and Hendrick and the rest of the guys who own multiple-car teams right now have worked hard to make their businesses work. But just like racing evolves, business does, too.
When the game changes, you have to adapt. If Toyota's arrival changes the way business is done in NASCAR, as so many people think it will, the teams that will be thriving five years from now will be the ones that figure out where the sport is going instead of merely resisting the forces driving it there.
And covering which teams do that and which teams fail won't be just a sidebar over the coming years. That's your lead.