NASCAR team at risk of having charter taken away?

NASCAR could end up having the ability to repossess a charter currently held by a Cup Series team due to consistently poor performance.

There are just 36 charters in the NASCAR Cup Series, and they are becoming increasingly challenging to get a hold of, especially with so many teams entering into or expanding their current teams in the Cup Series with the Next Gen car set to launch next year.

The incentives of owning a charter or charters are quite significant, which is precisely why they have become so expensive. So having one repossessed by NASCAR isn’t exactly the ideal scenario for any team, yet that is the scenario which one team could very well end up facing.

The reason for this is the fact that Charter teams are held to a minimum performance standard, relative to the other Charter teams.

If any Charter team finishes in the bottom three of the owner standings among the 36 Charter teams for three consecutive years, NASCAR has a right to remove the charter.

At risk of having NASCAR repossess their charter is the #51 team of Petty Ware Racing.

The #51 team finished in the bottom three of the owner standings in the 2019 season, along with the #77 Spire Motorsports team and the #52 Rick Ware Racing team, and they finished in the bottom three of the owner standings again in the 2020 season, along with the #00 StarCom Racing team and the #53 Rick Ware Racing team.

This is not to say for certain that NASCAR will repossess the charter if they have the right to do so, but that is just it; they could have the right to do so depending on where the #51 team finishes in the owner standings.

You also have to factor in the fact that the charter used to run the #51 Chevrolet is technically owned by Richard Petty Motorsports, so if repossession becomes an option, a transaction could very well be in the cards.

Among the 36 Charter teams, the #51 team currently sits in 32nd place in the owner standings with 184 points, ahead of the #52 Rick Ware Racing team (-4), the #53 Rick Ware Racing team (-9), the #15 Rick Ware Racing team (-15) and the #00 StarCom Racing team (-45).

Rick Ware Racing have charters for all four of their cars, and all four sit toward the bottom of the owner standings, as is the case with the team’s entries each year. But the #51 entry is the only one at risk of being in that bottom three for the third consecutive season.

Right now, the team is just nine points clear of giving NASCAR that option. While this small gap may actually appear somewhat safe with a two-team buffer, the problem is that jumping higher than 32nd place will be a challenge, since the next closest team is the #78 Live Fast Motorsports team, 30 points ahead.

So this two-team buffer is really a best-case scenario, and that nine-point gap isn’t much.

Strategically speaking, with three other cars, Rick Ware Racing could technically work to ensure that the #51 team doesn’t finish in the bottom three of the owner standings.

While that hasn’t become a factor, we have seen the #51 team climb from that bottom three up to 32nd over the last few months. Where will it end up when the season ends six races from now in early November?