KV Racing downsizes.
It would seem that the driver pool is not the only thing growing. Mechanics, crew workers, and strategist alike are being let go at an alarmning rate. Just a few days ago Rahal Letterman racing announced that they would be more than likely not be running an IndyCar program in 2009, but to not count them out of the month of May. Just this Friday, KV Racing let go of roughly 18 employess from their Indianapolis based organization. This was the crew for the second car. When jimmy Vasser was asked about the recent cut he stated
It was a very difficult thing to do because we have a good family atmosphere built up here but were past the date on our budget to carry the compliment of people for a two-car team. Those are just the facts. Last year we had no engine lease so it’s $2 million more we’ve got to come up with and we’ve got less money. I’ve never seen anything like this economy in my lifetime and it’s tough but we’re fighting and we’re doing everything we can.
KV Racing along with Paul Tracy have submitted a budget to Monster Energy Drink to run the complete 2009 season as well as just running the Indianapolis 500 and are still waiting on an answer.
February 2nd, 2009 at 14:36
The money aspect seems to be taking a different tole.
Granted when a team does not race it affects the crew, drivers, and owners due to sponsor trouble which usually seems to be the case nowadays.
But when it is seen that a company has to lay off several members of race team its a different aspect. Especially because of how close these teams are with each other. When it’s laid out differently news of lay offs just for employees seems so much more personal and so much more difficult to understand.
For most of these people racing is all they know.