NASCAR experiments with franchise ownership system

NASCAR is looking more like the NFL every day.

First it added playoffs, and penalties for unnecessary roughness. Now it has announced a franchise system patterned after those in football and the other stick-and-ball sports.

Next thing you know, one of the Busch brothers will be giving terse one-word replies to questions about how he lost the Daytona 500.

It will probably have to be Kurt. Judging from his comments about the franchise system when it was first proposed, Kyle Busch won't be giving Cam Newton-style answers anytime soon. As a car owner in other NASCAR series, he thinks franchises are a great idea.

Before the rule, owning a NASCAR team was a business risk that mostly relied on big sponsorships. If a big sponsor went away, so, too, might the race team. Other than selling the cars and wrenches for a fraction of what they cost, there wasn't a lot of resale value.

"The only thing that's valuable is the contracts from sponsorships," Busch said during the franchise discussions. "When you have investors come in, or when you have people come in that want to buy out another race team, essentially all they're buying out are those contracts.

"When it is time for (an owner) to sell or get out or whatever it might be, the only thing they've got is equipment, which is 10 cents on the dollar, and land and buildings and shop equipment, which is 50 cents on the dollar. There's really nothing worth value besides those contracts from sponsors."

Now, there will be 36 franchises (team owners are limited to four), with each said to be worth "in the single-digit millions." The franchise holders are guaranteed starting spots and a bigger chunk of NASCAR revenue pie. Franchises can be sold or leased. It's still a far cry from Mark Davis threatening to move the Raiders to Las Vegas, but at least it's something.

If there is a drawback, it's that franchises tend to discourage new teams from breaking into the sport. Under the NASCAR franchise system, starting lineups will be reduced from 43 to 40 cars — 36 franchise cars and four at-large spots.

But it's not as if NASCAR has been turning away a bunch of new teams and cars, anyway.

So this franchise system seems like a good idea, although I still wouldn't ask Cam Newton about it.

Another Terrible Herbst

But we mean that in a good way. Riley Herbst, the 16-year-old son of veteran off-road racer Troy Herbst — and nephew of other assorted off-road racing Herbsts — will make his NASCAR K&N Pro Series East debut Sunday at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida.

Young Herbst will drive the No. 19 NOS Energy Drink Toyota and will have 15-year-old Todd Gilliland, son of NASCAR Sprint Cup veteran David Gilliland, as a teammate in a two-car Bill McAnally Racing entry.

Assorted Gillilands — David Gilliland's father, Butch, used to tear up the West Coast bull rings back in his day — and myriad Herbsts are expected to watch from the grandstand or pit road.

The two K&N Series, one on each coast, are steppingstone circuits for aspiring stock car drivers, many of whom are still too young to kiss the trophy girl.

Green-white-checkered

• Gentlemen, start your steam shovels: When it was decided to reduce seating capacity and build a new RV viewing area atop what was the Turn 3 grandstand, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway hardhats did not remove the old aluminum bleachers. They buried them. Track officials said it was more efficient to throw dirt over the seats, John Gotti-style, rather than remove them. In a related note, a lot of NASCAR fans are hoping this new caution clock to be used in Truck Series races also can be buried John Gotti-style.

• NASCAR and gluten-free are two words one hardly uses in the same sentence. But Las Vegas Motor Speedway and its food vendor, Levy Restaurants, have announced a new health-conscious menu that will be served on NASCAR Weekend March 4-6. The sans gluten items will include paninis, tacos, beef brisket and Busch Brothers Beer Braised Brisket Nachos. The news release said race fans are in for a treat. I say if Benny Parsons — the 1973 Winston Cup champion, former NASCAR analyst and enthusiastic consumer of nonglutenous-foods — were still alive, he would probably have the final say.

• It's too bad this NASCAR franchise system had to come along because I saw an ad on eBay in which one could purchase Kurt Busch's old No. 97 Sharpie Ford Taurus for the buy-it-now price of $29,900. The car, used in five races from 2002 to 2005, has a rebuilt engine. But it's probably still much too slow to grab one of the four at-large qualifying spots at Daytona on Sunday.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. His motor sports notebook runs on Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski