The $2.5 million mystery

While no one is saying how much General Motors is cutting its financial support from teams, at least one court document puts a price tag on it.

Try $2,538,750. And that's to one Cup team.

A court document shows that GM was to have paid RCR Enterprises, LLC (i.e. Richard Childress Racing) that amount on June 15. Childress spoke Friday at Infineon Raceway about the GM situation. Asked if he received his June 15 payment from GM, Childress said: "That's kind of personal. I didn't ask you if you got your paycheck this week.''

If nothing else, that gives you a sense of some of the money that's out there and involved in this sport.

Childress would not reveal what kind of cutbacks GM is making with his team. Asked if he would have to lay anyone off, Childress said: "I don't know really what all is going to happen. We're going to have to make cuts like everybody in the sport or in business. We don't want to cut performance. For sure, we're not going to cut performance. We'll cut a lot of other things before that.''

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Kyle Busch said the folks at Joe Gibbs Racing had a meeting this week to exmaine what's wrong with the cars. He said owner Joe Gibbs, team president J.D. Gibbs, the crew chiefs and key engineers were in the meeting with him. He said Joey Logano was not there because Logano had another commitment. Denny Hamlin, who said he called for such a meeting two weeks ago, also was out of town that day and unable to make it.

"We need to get our cars better,'' Busch said. "That's the biggest thing. Our cars aren't as good as they were last year.''

Said Hamlin: "I think our motor program is a little bit behind. Probably our best aspect is our chassis. In aero, I think we're a little bit off. I think there's a litlte bit of a lot that's wrong wtih our stuff right now, but that's what the meeting is for _ is to try to figure out what issues are the most important.''

As for when you'll see signs that things are fixed: "Some things won't be immediate,'' Hamlin says. "Some things will probably be a year down the road realistically. For most of our issues, it's going to be a few months down the road before you're going to see any (fixes) at the race track itself.''

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Third team for Stewart?

Tony Stewart says that his organization could expand to three cars for next year. If so, that might give Brad Keselowski a home in Cup. Keselowski, who is affiliated with Hendrick Motorsports while driving in the Nationwide series for JR Motorsports is looking for a Cup ride. There's no room at Hendrick with its four-car lineup filled with Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Yet, Stewart-Haas Racing receives chassis, engines and technical support from Hendrick. Stewart-Haas could be a good place for Hendrick to place Keselowski if he so chooses.

Asked about a third car, Stewart said:

"It's a possibility, I guess,'' Stewart said. "The thing I made Ryan and Darian Grubb and Tony Gibson and Bobby Hutchens a promise is that we weren't going to try to grow too fast too soon. We wanted to make sure we had two cars that were competitive each week and had a shot to win the championship. I'm proud of the fact that I feel that we're at that point. If the right opportunity comes along and the right sponsor comes along, we would definitely entertain that at this point.''

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NOTES

# Jeff Gordon admits he's worried about his back this weekend at this track. "(Saturday) we'll make longer runs and I'll be able to know a little bit more then,'' he said.

 # Brian Vickers won his series-high fourth pole of the season.

 # Vickers' teammate, rookie Scott Speed, failed to qualify. Speed came to NASCAR from Formula One and was expected to do well this weekend. He had a good lap going but got off course in one segment. Speed still will race. He'll replace Joe Nemechek in Nemechek's car. It's just what happened at Darlington when Speed also failed to qualify for that race and got in Nemechek's car.

# Jeremy Mayfield's suit against NASCAR is scheduled to resume July 1 in Charlotte.

# The NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte will open its doors May 11, 2010.

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