Catching up with ... Bobby Ginn

GINN

Bobby Ginn, a real estate developer, last week purchased controlling interest of MB2 Motorsports from Nelson Bowers, who had owned 80 percent of the team that fields the Chevrolets driven in Nextel Cup by Sterling Marlin and Joe Nemechek. Ginn, whose Ginn Resorts has sponsored Marlin's car in some races this year, spoke on a teleconference with reporters, including Rick Minter of Cox News Service.

Q: Are there any immediate plans to restructure the team or do anything differently than it's been doing for the rest of the season? And after this season, what do you see for the team next year and down the road?

A: Not any major restructuring for this season. The one thing we are doing is we are installing some additional equipment in the shop itself that may have a little bit of impact on this year. But primarily, we're focusing on things going into next year.We obviously would like to expand.

We went into this thinking this would be a four-car team, and we're striving to get to a four-car team.We understand the dynamics of what that means when you can get that. What we are going to do for next year is we are going to work on sponsorship, work on cars and hopefully, we'll be a little bit better next year and continue to get better thereafter.

Q: How and why did you make the jump from sponsorship to car owner? Did you get into it as a sponsorship with an eye toward ownership?

A: I always thought I wanted to have a NASCAR team. ...We for years have been using the track to entertain with, but [sponsorship] took it to just a higher level. From there, we went into a higher level of sponsorship, and we worked our way through it as we began to do that and get more around the track, we looked at several teams. ... The reason and the final opportunity that really made itself available from our perspective was here was a team that had all of the facilities in place, all of the drivers and the sponsors to get two teams started. ... The last thing that really pushed it through, with the Car of Tomorrow, I think we have this tremendous opportunity.

Going into next year, there's a leveling of the playing field. Everybody has got to build a new car. Everybody has got to retest. Everybody has got to come out and do some things different. So the dominance of the four or five big teams, there's an opportunity as a crack. I'm not saying that they are going to go away, but there's a crack that someone else may be able to get in there and compete. It may never occur again.