Stallings bucks the economic trend

Bob Stallings owns both Gainsco Insurance and the Grand-Am team that bears his name. Stallings’s regular drivers are Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney (above), who claimed the 2007 title aboard a Pontiac-Riley. The combination is unchanged for 2009. Talking about life in the economically-challenged world of today, Stallings said: “We’re not doing anything different. We’re trying to do everything a little bit better.

“For us, a downturn like this is when you want to be able to use a platform such as racing to its maximum advantage. There are a lot of competitors who are cutting out their cookies on Fridays and that kind of thing, trying to cut their costs back. But Gainsco is actually getting more aggressive and trying to take market share during this period, and the racing programme is an extremely important part of that.”

Stallings has not made any budget or personnel cutbacks for this year. “We’re a pretty tightly-run team,” he explained. “We have 14 people and we run against racing organisations that have 400 people.

“I think Grand-Am is going to take on a higher profile with owners who want to race but can’t find enough money to compete at a higher level. They’re realising there are a lot of fans here and a lot of PR interest in the series. It costs a lot less money and the racing, in terms of side-by-side action, is better than any place else.”