Last week, General Motors announced a series of cost-cutting measures in an effort to stem its losses.

Along with the usual measures such as laying off more workers, closing plants and cutting back on advertising, GM executives also announced its motorsports involvement will be curtailed drastically.

"Like all areas of the business, these areas have not gone without a certain level of scrutiny, and there will be modifications and changes in our promotional footprint in all of those areas," said Troy Clarke, president of GM North America, at the press conference. "We're not going to talk about the details today, and specifically NASCAR, but all those areas have been reviewed and will continue to be as we work these action plans through."

GM is also looking at cutting back its involvement in other sports, such as Major League Baseball and professional golf.

While GM is into just about every type of motorsport, it is estimated that 90 per cent of its annual racing budget, between $120 million and $140 million, goes to NASCAR-related enterprises.

GM may not pull out of NASCAR entirely, but there are signs it will certainly be backing off when signing the cheques for teams, tracks, and advertising. According to an Associated Press report, GM has dropped its involvement with hosting Cup events at Bristol and New Hampshire.

Budgets to NASCAR teams from GM (Chevrolet) signed late in 2007 are being addressed and reviewed. The Hendrick, DEI and Childress racing empires may be asked by GM Racing to make adjustments (less money) in these contracts.

The old saying "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" was once true in racing, but nothing could be further from the truth today. GM, as did Ford and Chrysler, and eventually Toyota, got into stock car racing to promote and ultimately sell its products. When NASCAR introduced and mandated its Car of Tomorrow, with total control over this new body, any remaining corporate identity between car makers went away.

It's no secret attendance at Cup races is down. The economy gets some of this blame, but perhaps the fans want a return, or at least a gesture, to being able to tell if a Cup car is a Fusion or a Camry without having to read the stickered-on name badges.

Perhaps this is NASCAR's ultimate plan, to morph all car makers' products into one indistinguishable race car, just painted and lettered differently. Perhaps the engines and powertrains will be next, and NASCAR will approach an auto maker to supply a "spec" engine for the racing, such as Honda does now with the IRL. That would save a huge amount of money, as the NASCAR teams would be able to just lease their power rather than spend millions on engine development.

Hopefully, GM will continue with its Corvette Racing budget. GM has taken one of its best products and successfully presented it on a global level with the car's success at Le Mans. This effort has given the beleaguered automaker a reason to hold up its head.

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Weekend winners...Dennis Thomson of Dundas won his third straight in the Ontario Pro Challenge Series. His Sauble Beach victory gives the Ford Taurus driver a solid lead in the 2008 standings ... Kevin Job won his first Southern Ontario Sprints feature of the season at Ohsweken Speedway last Friday. The Campbellville resident started the 20-lap A Main in 10th ... Brampton's Daniel Bois won the feature at Peterborough Speedway, and is second in points in the 2008 Lucas Oil Can-Am Midget series ... The Alcohol Funny Car final at the recent IHRA Mopar Canadian Nationals at Grand Bend was an all-Canadian race, with London's Paul Noakes winning over Larry Dobbs of Welland... Hamilton's Ross Millson placed ninth in the first round of the Parts Canada Superbike event at Mosport over the weekend. The Suzuki rider was in 12th place during the Sunday round on the Mosport road course when the race was red-flagged because of rain.

Tim Miller is a longtime motorsports writer and author of several books on the sport.