Some teams the sport that biggest names, Petty, Earnhardt, and Waltrip could enter the 2009 season with unsponsored cars. Chip Ganassi racing’s No. 40 team lost its Coors sponsorship last season, and managed to stay afloat using a patchwork of one-race deals. The team was shut down earlier this season. Chevron is pulling its Texaco sponsorship of Ganassi’s other team, the No 42 next season.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Nationwide team, JR Motorsports lost its primary sponsor when the U.S. Navy announced it would not return to the No. 88. The team has won two races this season, and sits third in points, and it lost its primary sponsor. That’s an indication of how bad things are.

Earnhardt Jr. said:

The economy is the way it is, there isn’t much you can do about it. A lot of these guys are going to walk around empty-handed next year. …  We’ll race the races we can afford to race. A lot of the people that work there are family and so that place has to be open.

The Budweiser Shootout will now feature the top six teams from each manufacturer in the final owner points. The move seems to be designed to put the emphasis on the manufacturers.

The race distance will also be increased from 70 laps to 75 laps. There will be two segments of 25 and 50 laps, with yellow flag laps included. There will also be a 10 minute break between the segments.

From a logical perspective, the reason for the change does make sense, though. After all, Budweiser used to sponsor the pole award, so there was a link. But, with Coors now sponsoring the pole, the two are no longer connected, and probably shouldn’t be linked.