LOUDON, N.H. – A decade ago, they were fixtures in what was then called the NASCAR Busch North Series. A few years later, the name had changed, and so, too, had their roles as they went from drivers to owners.

This year, with another name change in the series now called the Camping World East Series, New England natives Andy Santerre and Mike Olsen are facing what could be the most significant changes of their racing careers.

Despite four driving titles himself, and having provided aspiring drivers for the likes of Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Richard Childress Racing a place to compete for championships, Santerre’s Andy Santerre Motorsports is in jeopardy of calling the 2008 season its last.

For fellow former champion Olsen, his family-owned race team announced on Friday that driver Max Dumarey would be leaving the team at season’s end to return home to his native Belgium – leaving Olsen with possibility of a ride with no driver.

And no 2009 season.

"With as much equipment and as much money has I have invested in this series, it’s hard to imagine doing anything different," Olsen said on Thursday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after qualifying for Friday’s Heluva Good! Fall 125. "The series is taking a lot of money to be able to be competitive – and unless you’re getting that money, I don’t know if I’m still interested."

Both owners have full-time employees working in full-time race shops. Both owners are trying to line sponsors up for next year with just three races left on the 2008 calendar. Both owners have people whose futures depend on their decisions.

Both Olsen and Santerre estimated that they have no better than a 50 percent chance of keeping their teams running beyond the final checkered flag of the current season.

NO GUARANTEES

Peyton Sellers is in his first season at Andy Santerre Motorsports, and he qualified on the pole for the Heluva Good! 125 at NHMS on Friday. He sits eighth in the series standings, working hard to make his first career trip to East Series victory lane.

But the Danville, Va., native is working even harder at just staying in the series. Last week, Santerre pulled the team aside last week and let them all know that there were no employment guarantees for any of them.

"The last four years I’ve been driving, I didn’t know what I was going to be driving the following spring," said Sellers, who said a team needed a minimum of $500,000 just to get on the track to start a Camping World East Series season. "He’s as honest as anyone you’ll ever meet. He lets us know what’s going on. He told us. He pulled us together and said that if we didn’t have (sponsorship) by the end of the racing season, it would be pretty hard to keep everyone on through the winter.

"It’s business. It’s what he has to do."

Santerre poised himself at the forefront of the East Series’ driver development movement prior to 2007, fielding one car for Sean Caisse while then bringing in DEI youngster Jeffrey Earnhardt. This season, the team tried again to run two cars – one for Sellers, who purchased the seat in the No. 44 he’s driving, and a second for RCR driver Austin Dillon.

Early in the season, though, Dillon left ASM to run out of his family’s own Team Dillon Racing operation.

That left just the one car for Sellers, and a sour taste in Santerre’s mouth. He said Thursday that as he moves forward, he’s not interested in providing Cup development again.

"I really want to keep it going, but with the economy being the way it is and the series not getting a lot of TV coverage, it’s a pretty tough sell right now," said Santerre, who has had discussions about his own personal future, too, including a team management role with a Craftsman Truck Series team. "At least I have some things that I can do, but my main concern right now is the guys that have been with me a while. I really want to make sure they’re taken care of."

NEW VENTURE

Mike Olsen has six full-time employees, one full-time team that runs the entire Camping World East Series schedule and selected ARCA aces and one part-time CWES team he fields for himself.

The youngster Dumarey is leaving one year shy of completing his three-year contract. When he leaves, he takes a huge chestful of family money with him – leaving Olsen with no money, no driver and no prospects for the future. Word of Dumarey’s departure came two weeks ago.

Olsen said he entertain everything from driving himself to putting another young – but this time more proven – driver in the seat.

"I’m not giving up," Olsen said. "If you get a raw rookie with not a lot of racing experience, there’s a learning curve. But learning curves are expensive. I’ve got to decide what I want to do. I know that I didn’t enjoy this year at all.

"It’s not enjoyable to watch your equipment – that you feel is pretty good equipment – not run well. That’s difficult to watch."

Olsen’s attachment to the series is strong, that much is clear. But he also understands that the window is closing to keep competing there.

"It’s just hard all the way around," Olsen said. "(Cup development) was kind of what I wanted to do when I got into this... but it’s kind of fallen off. I think most of the Cup teams look at it like if they’re going to do something, they wonder why not just do it themselves?"

CONSIDERING THE END

A decade ago, Olsen and Santerre were among others – Dave Dion, Mike Stefanik, Brad Leighton, to name only a few – whose names were synonymous with the Camping World East Series. Now, informal polls would likely produce very few names of current East Series drivers.

A year from now, Olsen and Santerre could be gone entirely, the doors on their shops slammed shut.

"I’m really negotiating hard with all our sponsors to get something rolling a little earlier than normal," said Santerre, who doesn’t want to wait beyond this season to make a decision on next year.

"It’s amazing. I know that if I wait I could get something, because a lot of people don’t even look at this stuff until January. My problem is that I don’t really want to sit on six months of payroll and paying for the building, because I can’t afford to take that chance. Then if something doesn’t happen, I’m upside-down.

"Ideally, I’d like to sell it to someone on a turn-key deal – where I could stay on or not stay on if they wanted. But everyone else could stay there and keep working."

Teams without strong Cup Series backing, right now, are just treading water in the East Series.

"Everybody’s behind Andy 100 percent, and they’d let him lead them into fire," Sellers said of his boss. "They all know he’s working as hard as he can to keep things going."

Santerre, like Olsen may be working hard, but sadly for a chapter in New England racing history, it may not be enough to keep the book from closing.

Posted at 7:15 p.m. by TBarrett