Childress acknowledges cuts from bankrupt General Motors

RCR added to list of General Motors cutbacks

SONOMA, Calif. — Support for General Motors remained strong Friday, even as teams adjust to reduced funding as the automaker navigates through its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Team owner Richard Childress said his four-car organization is among those who have been informed GM support is being scaled back. Rick Hendrick and Tony Stewart said earlier this week that they met with GM officials, who must cut back spending since filing earlier this month for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Stewart said the cuts are immediate.

“We’ll make it through the year, for sure,” Stewart said at Infineon Raceway. “We’re supportive of what Chevy had to do. There’s a lot of people that don’t even have jobs. We just got our budget cut percentage-wise. We’re still (getting) support from Chevy and we’re proud of that.

“It’s a hard situation for them. You can see it in their eyes when they came to the shop, it’s not a meeting they wanted to have. They didn’t want to tell us that we’d have to take a cut.”

GM last week cut funding completely to Nationwide and Truck Series teams. It met with its Cup teams this week, but GM officials have declined to reveal which teams had their budgets slashed and to what degree the funding will be cut.

NASCAR program manager Pat Suhy also wouldn’t discuss what areas — technology, support or cash transactions — were affected.

“When you talk about adjustments, it really affects everything,” Suhy said. “It’s between us and them how they choose to allocate it as far as the different options.”

According to documents filed in the General Motors bankruptcy case in federal court, GM had a $2,538,750 payment due to “RCR Enterprises,” but Childress would not discuss the payment.

“That’s kind of personal, I didn’t ask you if you got your paycheck this week,” he said.

But he was confident the GM restructuring won’t hurt his organization.

“It’s not going to affect our performance at RCR. It’s not going to affect our technology,” he said. “I’ve been driving Chevys since I ran a Camaro in Talladega’s first Cup race in 1969, and I look forward to continuing that relationship.”