How NASCAR Cup drivers get paid

Q: Greg, just how do the drivers in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup get paid? Do they receive a percentage of the winnings, or are they paid a salary like major-league baseball players? — Dee P., e-mail from South Carolina

A: Dee, the correct answer is both! Most every Nextel Cup driver is under contract to drive for “X” amount of dollars, most being in the $750,000 to $1 million range (more for the real superstars). Additionally, drivers share in a percentage of the winnings, about 40 percent for the good ones to a low of about 25 percent for the lesser-funded team drivers. A win, meanwhile, could net 50 percent to the driver.

If you look at the purses paid and do the math, you quickly wonder how a team makes money if their superstar driver gets, say, $1.5 million to drive every year, plus 40 percent of the purse. The answer is the high-dollar corporate sponsor, the entity that pays as much as $20 million a year for a top team. The team owner uses this money to pay all the bills, including driver salary, crew salaries, travel, lodging and meals.

Although driver salaries are never released to the media, I do know of a driver who has won two Cup races in a long career that was getting $700,000 to drive and a nice percentage of the purse. (I believe at that time it was 30 percent).

This was back in the mid-‘90s, so things have progressed much higher since then. As for the top sponsors, they say they get an excellent return on their multimillion-dollar investments.

However, we’re not finished yet. Drivers and teams then share in other “incidentals,” like personal appearances, endorsements and highly profitable ancillary sales, which include die-cast cars, shirts, hats, jackets, pins, model kits, trading cards and other collectible items. A popular driver can make more on these deals than his salary, with the superstars making way, way more than their usual driving contract deals. Some top drivers can make a total of $15 million to $20 million per year.

There is more to racing than meets the eye, but remember, without the big sponsor, drivers struggle. Take Nextel Cup drivers like Andy Belmont, Kirk Shelmerdine, Morgan Shepherd or Andy Hillenburg, and the rule is completely reversed. Although all are deserving, they realize very little ancillary sales, have no major sponsors, don’t command top dollar for personal appearances and all the bills come directly to the team owner or themselves. It’s tough on this end, while extremely successful on the other.

In ending, here are two things to ponder. Dale Earnhardt Sr. and his RCR No. 3 Chevy accounted for more income from T-shirt and die-cast car sales than the entire fields of IRL and CART drivers in the late ‘90s. When you’re hot, you’re hot. Second, Dale Sr. is still hot when it comes to souvenirs, while Junior is the hottest.