What does a driver make?

I get asked this a lot. Driver contracts are private so it's often hard to nail down exactly what a driver makes. From time to time, though, driver contracts appear as part of lawsuits and give a look at the world of a NASCAR driver's pay structure. Such is the case in a recent lawsuit Mike Wallace Racing Inc. (i.e. Mike Wallace) has filed against Germain Racing.

 

In the lawsuit, Mike Wallace alleges that Germain Racing took the sponsor,GEICO, that Wallace brought to the Nationwide team and used it to fund what became a part-time Cup effort with Max Papis as driver. Wallace is suing for breach of contract. Among the documents included in the lawsuit is the sponsorship agreement Wallace had with GEICO and Wallace's driver contract.

 

In the contracts they state:

 

# That GEICO paid Mike Wallace $6 million  a year to sponsor him. Wallace, then took that money and paid Germain Racing $4.7 million a year to drive for the team. In essence, think of Wallace as the middleman. He gets the sponsor GEICO to align with him and then provides the funding to a team that will hire him. Also, included is a contract between Mike Wallace Racing and Doug Barnette of Player Management International. Mike Wallace Racing agrees to pay Barnette 10 percent of all money generated from GEICO for the purpose of sponsorship. That would be $600,000. So, subtract that from the $1.3 million difference in what GEICO paid MWR and what MWR paid Germain and that gives Mike  Wallace Racing $700,000 out of the deal. 

# Mike Wallace and Germain Racing agreed to split all the winnings earned 50-50. In 2008, Wallace's winnings were $1.3 million. Thus, he got about $650,000 of that. Add that to the $1.3 million he was getting through brokering the GEICO deal and that put him at about $1.3 million in earnings in the Nationwide Series in 2008 when he finished eighth in the points.

 

A few other things from the driver contract with Germain:

 

# Any decision to change crew chiefs had to be agreed upon by both the team and the driver.

# The team was responsible for hotel room and rental car expenses for race events and test sessions. Team also was to reimburse Wallace for air or ground transportation expenses at $1,000 per event or test session.

# The team must furnish 8 pit passes to Wallace for each race for use by GEICO/Sports Clips officers, directors, employees or guests.

# The contract also stated that for a year after the termination of the agreement, Germain Racing could not solicit GEICO for sponsorship for any race teams owned or operated by the team or its principal or minority ownership group.

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

Denny Hamlin is confused about David Reutimann being so angry at  him for an incident that took out Reutimann during last week's Pocono race. Hamlin thought things have been squared between the two, yet Wednesday in downtown Charlotte, Reutimann told a few of us that at that time: "I would like to talk to (Hamlin). I'm not happy. I'm not happy. I'm aggravated. I'm mad as heck to be honest with you about the way the whole situation (happened). I'm not sugar-coating any of that. I'm still really, really aggravated.''

 

Here is what Hamlin said Friday at Waktins Glen:

 

"I was surprised,'' Hamlin said. "We actually talked that night, and I talked to him and he seemed fine. He didn't say anything that he was angry or anything. I'm sure he was but he seemed fine that night. I've been in a situation before where you're battling for a Chase spot. It's not always about one race. There's a lot of races that lead up to it and, yeah, you have one bad race but there's a culmination of races that are before that that kind of put you in that spot. We definitely didn't help his Chase chances I'm sure, but it happens, it really does, and I've been in the same situation. I'm apologetic about it for sure. It's something that I didn't mean to do but at the same sense you can't put the blame all on me if he doesn't make the Chase.''

 

 

COMMENTS ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here; comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its websites. Users must follow agreed-upon rules: Be civil, be clean, be on topic; don't attack private individuals, other users or classes of people. Read the full rules here.
- Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the report violation link below it.