Perhaps the biggest anomaly of this entire situation is the case of Robby Gordon Motorsports. The lone single-car, owner-driver team left in the garage has weathered this storm for years now. Last year's failed switch to Dodge and the botched relationship with Gillett Evernham Motorsports left team owner and driver Robby Gordon out on his own and racing for his team's existence. Recently announcing his team's switch to Toyota for 2009 and the return of sponsor Jim Beam for a partial schedule is proof that small teams can still function in today's ever-growing monopolistic world of NASCAR.

"You know, too many people just want to talk about negative, and I'm just not interested in having a conversation like that," Gordon explained to HardcoreRaceFans.com prior to the end of the season. "You've got to have a positive attitude all of the time and if you sit there and watch the news everyday, all it is, is negative. We're not going to let it affect us any way. We're just going to keep doing what we do. Hopefully we do a good enough job for the sponsors we have and they want to come back with us.

"NASCAR is the sport that it is because of the fans we have. If you look at this year, yeah the economy has taken a little bit of a dive, but more people are watching our races," Gordon pointed out. "TV ratings are up, more people are having backyard parties and one of my sponsors, John Menards, had some of the best three months in business. So, it's a philosophy that if you believe the sky is falling, the sky is probably going to fall - but the sky isn't falling."