A report in USA Today is putting meat on the bones of a statement made at GM's presser last week, when the boss-men made mention of cutbacks to the PR budget which would hit motorsports especially hard. It seems those crosshairs are aimed directly at NASCAR: With a $15 billion dollar hole to dig itself out of, and a NASCAR promotions budget of $120 million, GM's cuts are expected to be fairly aggressive. Track owners are already working to line up new sponsors to replace the General's spending. Our snap analysis after the jump.
Jalopnik Snap Judgement: To be honest, we can't say we blame GM. The relentless march of NASCAR towards something looking like a big-budget IROC series leaves the "Race on Sunday, sell on Monday" model all but evaporated. The only differences between the "cars of tomorrow" are decals and the engine under the hood — and heck, that doesn't even have anything to do with a street car anyway. We tend to agree with the General that blowing huge piles of money to tout cars that don't even look like anything on the lot is a mis-allocation of resources. The only loser in this plan, as we see it, is NASCAR. Without automotive sponsors, it kind of starts to looks like the smoke and mirrors man-drama it actually is. [USAToday]