• Washington Post , Thursday, October 23, 2008 10:45 AM

"What wins on Sunday, sells on Monday!" So goes the Detroit marketing adage. Or so went the adage. Liz Clarke? reports that Big Three U.S. automakers have begun to dramatically scale back their financial involvement in NASCAR, threatening the economic model that has driven the sport's popularity.

"NASCAR is really a glass-half-full bunch, but they're having trouble masking the fact that this is really affecting them," says Peter DeLorenzo, a former automotive advertising executive and editor of the Autoextremist.com blog. "I think they never really believed a day would come when Detroit's almost-blind embracing of NASCAR would even wane." Corporate sponsors account for roughly 80% of the typical NASCAR team's budget, but they're scaling back, too. But just four months before the 2009 season-opening Daytona 500, two of NASCAR's most revered teams -- Petty Enterprises and Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- are searching for sponsors to bankroll four of the six racecars they intend to field between them.

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