HVM Hurtin'

Now, at the beginning of the year, I figured HVM was pretty well off. Sure they were a one-car team, but they were a one car team with some dough behind them. PVDSA has been funding E.J Viso's Indycar career for '08 and '09, but this year, with the added engine bill ontop of everything they had last year, there seems to be a bit more of a budget crunch.

Before the first race of the year, there were whispers HVM was hurting for some coin. Mike King said they were going to have difficulty answering the bell and making it through the season. Well, so far, he has an average finish of just over 20th, and 2 of them have been mechanical failures, which can sometimes have connections to the lack of money (teams trying to make things last, not buying the best parts etc...).

How we are coming up on the month of May, and while HVM might be expanding it's team to two cars for the I500, it isn't expanding the amount of chassis' it has kickin' around. According to Is It May Yet (who seems absolutely giddy that it's that time of the year), the addition of Nelson Philippe to the HVM stable has come at the expense of Monsieur Viso's 13 T-car. HVM will instead run solely cars 13 and 31 with no T-cars entered for the race.

Well I'm sorry, but running through the month of May with two cars, hoping neither crashes, well... You'd better be liked by the big guy in the sky, especially if you consider who the driver of the #13 car is. You'd have to assume HVM is making some money off of this endeavor to help fund the rest of Viso's season, otherwise this risk would seem almost stupid. I mean it's nice to get two cars out of them for May, and it's nice to see Nelson Philippe out there, this time in an IRL sanctioned race, but come on, there must be another reason they are doing it, and I'm guessing it's money.

So I guess the rumors at the beginning of the season were true regarding HVM's money, or lack there of, and with a string of ovals coming up, this is where we'll see that lack of money hurt the most. Hopefully they can come out it relatively well at Indy and Mr. Excitement can provide some excitement for us all.