Full Throttle

Rick Hendrick, the new Ganassi/DEI alliance (assuming they go the Chevy route), RCR and any other NASCAR teams dependent on General Motors support better watch their bottomlines even more closely than previously.

This comes via a Doug Demmons post.

The bean counters at General Motors have gone to extremes in preventing the company from going the way of the Stanley Steamer or Packard.

As part of a drive to cut $15 billion in costs, GM is no longer keeping the 562 clocks in working order, which will eliminate the expense of replacing and disposing of the clock’s batteries and the cost of resetting them twice a year for daylight-saving time.

But wait there’s more:

… the company now stops the escalators at 7 p.m. In designated cleanup areas of certain offices, the company has changed the type of wipe-up towels it buys. In a memo to employees, a staffer explained this will lower GM’s “cost per wipe.”

Wonder if the “cost per wipe” policy extends to the company washrooms?

I’m guessing only to those under Chief Executive Rick “I LUV my Private Jet” Wagoner, but I could be, and most probably, be wrong.

Anyway, back to Hendrick Motorsports and the other GM supported teams, if GM is reducing its “U.S. marketing expenses by 20 percent” by cutting short a Tiger Woods endorsement contract by a full year what does it mean for NASCAR?

I don’t pretend to know the answer, and I doubt Hendrick does either, but it may mean nothing as Tiger’s “name” apparently did nothing for the Buick brand: “GM’s partnership with Woods hasn’t helped boost Buick’s appeal to younger buyers, according to a study by Strategic Vision Inc., an industry consultant.”

Or, it could mean everything and Hendrick and the rest of NASCAR’s “yachtsmen” will have to start running their fleets on recycled McDonald’s french fry oil.

IN RELATED NEWS: Lori Shuler Hamilton, widow of the late Bobby Hamilton, has decided to cease operations of Bobby Hamilton Racing-Virginia. The team’s sponsorship from Dodge ended after the 2008 season. The organization started the season with two trucks but cut back to one during the year.

AS A SIDENOTE to the GM situation: Voice mail at most of the company’s plants has been eliminated, a move that GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said saved something like “a million” dollars.” Now, the only way to get union representatives or officers on the phone is to catch them at their desk or station.

MeThinks that may have nothing to do with cost cutting and everything to do with sparing a few eardrums from excessive “noise.”

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