Source: Boston Globe.com
Off the track, drivers feel pain at the pump
By Michael Vega, Globe Staff | June 24, 2008
Carl Edwards feels your pain. So does Denny Hamlin.
While their occupation as NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers might suggest otherwise, Edwards and Hamlin are just like every other American who has been staggered by the cost of gasoline. After all, they're paying the same price at the pump as you when they go to fill up their personal vehicles or recreational toys such as motorcycles, boats, and, yes, even aircraft.
So they feel it, too.
"I really do, believe it or not," said Hamlin, the 27-year-old driver of the No. 11 Toyota Camry fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing. "It's tough when you have a normal vehicle and it takes $85 to fill it up where it used to take about $26.
"I haven't been around too long and I haven't had my license too long, and I don't remember when it was 25 cents [a gallon], but I do remember when it was about $1.69."
And that's to say nothing of the rising cost of aviation fuel, which has hit those drivers who fly from race to race in private jets.
"I feel it through that, for sure," Hamlin said. "I think it probably costs us somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000-$13,000 to fill it up and that will take us about three or four hours [of flying time] and that's it. I know that's what it was when gas prices were normal."
Ah, those halcyon days when gas was less than $2 per gallon and it took no more than a $20 bill to fill up the tank. Now, with the price of crude hovering near $137 a barrel, Americans sometimes have to reach for the C-notes instead to fill up.
"Just like anyone, I filled up my truck this morning and the pump stopped at $75 and the tank is half-full," said Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Ford fielded by Roush Fenway Racing. "So I'm very fortunate right now that I have a very good job and I get paid a lot of money and it's the greatest thing in the world.
"But I can understand, because just a few years ago, I was driving myself around the country, doing odd jobs, trying to go to college, and I was broke. And fuel prices weren't $4 a gallon, so I can definitely understand that this is tough on a lot of people."
But how tough has it been for NASCAR to operate what, on the surface, appears to be a gas-guzzling enterprise? Car owners and drivers don't necessarily feel it at the pump when they go to work, because Sunoco, which has been the official fuel of NASCAR since 2004, supplies a custom, high-octane fuel for each and every team that lines up in the 43-car grid.
At no cost.
So, for example, in this Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H., NASCAR officials estimate that Sunoco will bring about 2,738 gallons of race fuel to the track to be distributed to race teams. Total cost: Zero.
If NASCAR teams, which will consume an estimated 63.8 gallons of fuel Sunday, getting an average of 5 miles to the gallon, were forced to pay what the average American pays at the pump ($4 per gallon), then the fuel bill would come out to almost $255 per team.
For a 500-mile race, NASCAR car owner Eddie Wood of Wood Brothers Racing calculates that it would require 116 gallons at a cost of roughly $464.
"That's one tire," said Wood, trying to put it in relative terms. "In the real world, to us, that's one tire. Everything's based on tires. 'Well, that's one set of tires, that's two sets of tires.' "
A drop in the barrel
Sunoco produces its custom race fuel for NASCAR's top three series at a refinery in Marcus Hook, Pa., near Philadelphia. The amount it produces annually for NASCAR represents but a tiny fraction of the fuel Americans consume.
"The amount of fuel used in NASCAR is relatively insignificant, when compared to the amount of consumption by Americans who drive each day," said Andrew Giangola, NASCAR's director of business communications. "The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series uses about 135,000 gallons of fuel, racing from Daytona and all the way through to the [season-ending] Ford 400 [in Homestead, Fla.]. And that compares to 360 million gallons used by Americans every day."
And, Giangola was quick to point out, because the amount is so minute in comparison to the daily domestic demand, "It has no impact on the availability or price of regular passenger fuel." While they may not feel it at the track, NASCAR owners and drivers feel the pain at the pump off it. They must absorb the costs of ferrying not only themselves but a convoy of tractor-trailer rigs, each capable of hauling up to 80,000 pounds of equipment from NASCAR's nerve center near Charlotte, N.C., to all compass points on the 36-race schedule.
According to Chris Sweeny, driver of the hauler for the No. 9 Dodge driven by Kasey Kahne, "Most teams figure that their transportation costs have gone up about 33 percent." Sweeny said it costs Gillett Evernham Motorsports roughly $1,500 to fill up the 300-gallon fuel tank on the diesel tractor-trailer. To make the cross-country trek to Sonoma, Calif., for Sunday's race at Infineon Raceway, Sweeny said it required two fuel stops each on the outbound and inbound portions.
NASCAR owners and drivers have been forced to deal with such staggering costs as part of the price of doing business in the sport these days.
"You conduct business as usual," said car owner Len Wood, Eddie's brother. "You can't shop it around. The trucks usually leave with only a few hours of pad for a problem. So there's really not any time to be riding by a truck stop, saying, 'Oh, man, I can save some money there.' There's no time for that. You've got to keep on doing business as you were, as far as things like that.
"Transportation is not going to change. You've still got to go. You've still got to be there."Chimed in Eddie Wood, "They're still going to have a race whether we're there or not, no matter what you do." As for the Wood Brothers' operating costs, how has their bottom line been affected?
"Well, steel costs are up," noted Eddie Wood. "The steel sheets we bought four years ago were about $10,000. Last year, it was $16,000 for the very same thing. So that's a piece of equipment we need.
"Obviously, the steel that we use to build our cars is more expensive than it was a year ago. Then everything you purchased to go on the car is more expensive, because a lot of those products have to be made somewhere and they have to be transported somehow, so their costs are going up.
"Seems like everything gets back to fuel, doesn't it?"
Michael Vega can be reached at
vega@globe.com.
NASCAR and the price of Gas
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