VRW NoteBook: Team Lightspeed Goes Under; More Money Woes Hit The VRW Teams
- NR4
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- Virtual Racing World
Team Lightspeed's VRW Race Team Goes Bust
When the VRW season started most people thought that Team Lightspeed would be one of the top teams in the league with owners Brian Simpson and Bob Stanley at the helm. Unfortunately after the VRW Talladega 300 the team was forced to close the TLS VRW team shop and release drivers Wade Hermes and Nim Cross.
For most there is no doubt that extravagant salaries coupled with poor race results put the team under. Through the last race at Talladega, the TLS drivers had won only $673k (virtual) while taking $1.3 million from the team. You do the math...
More On Money
Of the VRW's 20 teams only 5 have managed to actually increase their bankroll. Those teams are Team Cyclone, Ellision Racing, Farmer Racing, Ostrow Racing, and DeadWrinkle Racing.
Ellision Racing has the best winnings to salary ratio, winning over 5.5 times what they are being paid. The Ellision drivers have also racked up $192 k of incident fines... over twice as much as any other team on the tour.
The real question is how many teams will make it to the end of the season. Three teams currently have less than $250k to work with for the next four events. TDRacin' has accumulated large damage costs of over a million dollars.
Ford Performance Motorsports became a weekly race contender after team owner Andy Small picked up driver Brett Rupert several weeks ago. Rupert has shown a lot of promise and a cool head despite the physical racing that has been occuring on the VRW tracks in the last few weeks.
End of Season Aid From the VRW?
Series administrator Nim Cross announced the decision to award all teams who finished the season above water a flat $250k in addition to their championship purse payout. That money should help out some of the teams at the bottom of the money list keep out of trouble in the upcoming season two. This move could also really help the newly entered teams as they have not had to endure the entire season financially and will have an monetary advantage over any team that enters the series on the first race of season two.
In With The New
Slow Poke Racing's driver Dustin McGrew led quite a few laps at 'Dega for the newest team in the VRW. We'll be keeping an eye on him to see how he performs on the smaller tracks.
Speaking of new teams, Jonathan Frey's new VRW team will debut at Phoenix this next week. Called Team USA Motorsports we will be eagerly watching their progress.
The Incident Fines Continue
The VRW showed that it will not bend in regards to rough driving and handed out over $122k in fines to seven drivers for their part in incidents at Talladega. Of the 11 incidents reported, 8 resulted in a fine ranging from $5k to $25k.
Like 'The Big One' Never Happened
After the VRW 'Dega 300 the VRW administration announced that all damage from 'The Big One' on lap 94 would not reduce the team's bankroll because the crash was started by a 'guest driver'.