iNSIDE SCOOP: End Game for Finch

James Finch is one of the last of the good-guy, small-team car owners in NASCAR.

On July 15, he’ll exit, stage left, provided a proposed buyer fulfills his promise to buy the Phoenix Racing team from him.

That’ll be a sad day. 

NASCAR is not for everyone. You have to have money, by the cubic ton, if at all possible. Infrastructure is a key component, and you have to have good people. Finch has money, from his construction empire, and he has a shop in Spartanburg, S.C. He has good people too.

But, he says, it’s time to go do something else. He hasn’t been able to secure a full-time sponsor and as you all know, money makes the NASCAR world go ‘round. 

There was a day when Finch and guys like Leo Jackson and Junie Donlavey could run a single car and be competitive. Maybe it wasn’t at every race, but they were competitive enough to matter and get their money back, at least, to get to the next race and a little beyond.

That ship has left the station. You can’t be competitive unless you’re hooked into a Hendrick or Roush or Gibbs deal, with the attendant price tag. Gone are the days of gentleman owners who put their car up against the other guys’ cars for bragging rights and the honor of the thing.

It’s about the marketing, man.

Finch has had some good days at the track. His cars have won 13 NASCAR Nationwide Series races over the years, with drivers like Jeff Purvis, et al. His lone NASCAR Sprint Cup victory came at Talladega, when Brad Keselowski drove through Carl Edwards to win coming down to the checkered. 

What I will miss about him in the Cup Series is his desire to tilt at the corporate windmill that is the Hendrick-Roush-Gibbs-Childress mega-team order. 

Back in the day, Bill and Mickey Stavola would bring a single car to the track, along with Filbert Martocci, Jackson, Donlavey and others. Robby Gordon had his own one-car team, so did Chuck Bown and Bobby Allison. Tommy Baldwin has two cars, but for years he was a single-car guy. Randy Humphrey does it now, Phil Parsons, Joe Nemechek…the list goes on. 

But Finch wanted to be a single-car team with a chance to win races. You just can’t do that these days, with the technology available, unless you’re willing to spend the money that the big teams do. Most of those big teams have three or four primary eight-figure sponsors and a lot of littler ones, which means they spread costs. 

Guys like Finch don’t play golf; they race. It took the place of their golf game, in all reality. Mano y mano, they wanted to put their car up against the best in the business and win.

James Finch is going to play in the Nationwide Series, perhaps, and do a couple of one-offs, but that’s it, he says. 

It’s a sad day for NASCAR and its fans. 

There are quite a lot of Goliaths in the garage, and we just lost another David.