Job market rough for midlevel NASCAR drivers
TALLADEGA, Ala. One of NASCAR's big shots won at Talladega Superspeedway, a hectic and crash-filled race that still, somehow, managed to showcase three drivers in need of a job.
Matt DiBenedetto, Erik Jones and Ty Dillon all followed winner Denny Hamlin across the finish line in a predictably chaotic and white-knuckled tripleovertime finish. A win would not have locked down a 2021 seat for any member of the trio, but it certainly would have generated buzz to sway a potential sponsor.
This season during the pandemic has led to the most tumultuous free agent period in two decades and midlevel drivers are being squeezed out during an economic reset. The multimillion-dollar salaries for A-list drivers have shrunk, paying rides are few and far between, and the market is flush with inexperienced, young entrepreneurs armed with some sponsorship dollars.
“It's getting to a tough place in the sport where you have to bring money with you,” Dillon said. “A little bit goes a long way right now.”
The nature of Talladega gave all three a shot at racing for the win and then selling their story to a sympathetic crowd. Talladega permitted about 15,000 fans and they saw a record 13 cautions and 12 laps in overtime for a four-plus hour event stopped by two red flags. They booed when Hamlin was declared the
winner after a NASAR review, but cheered the underdogs who weathered the on-track carnage while facing job uncertainty:
• DiBenedetto doesn't know if his option will be picked up by Wood Brothers Racing and the deadline last week for a team decision passed without a word. It's the second year in a row his job status has been in flux late in the season and he miraculously upgraded his 2019 release with his current Team Penske-affiliated ride. DiBenedetto wants to return to the No. 21 Ford but he's at the mercy of a Penske need to open a seat for an Austin Cindric promotion from the Xfinity Series.
• Jones is out of a job for the first time in his career because Joe Gibbs
Racing is replacing him next year with Norman's Christopher Bell. Jones thought he was working on a contract extension to stay with the organization so he was a late addition to the market and many teams were well into 2021 planning.
• Dillon is in his fourth full season driving for single-car Germain Racing. The team is aligned with Richard Childress Racing but Dillon has been able to step away from the spotlight that shines first on Childress, his grandfather and a Hall of Famer, and brother Austin Dillon, a Daytona 500 winner currently in the championship race. Germain folding his team put Dillon out of work and the resources don't exist for RCR to expand to give him a job.
Those three fall into
a group of drivers who don't bring much, if any, sponsorship money with them and must persuade team owners to hire them based solely on potential. Those kind of jobs hardly exist anymore — even Bubba Wallace is bringing upward of $18 million in sponsorship to the new Hamlin and Jordan race team — and drivers are grabbing anything they can get.
It's a hard sell during a volatile time. Many cars are funded through business-to-business relationships, slowing the flow of hard cash. It has upended the quality of driver — Cup champions Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski have railed about the talent discrepancy in the series — and placed the mid-level driver on the endangered list.