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MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- The yard sales were doing a brisk business up U.S. 58, cars pulled over into side ditches and pickups with the tailgates down lined up along the side roads. Crude signs pointed people to still more yards further along the highway leading to Spencer and then Horse Pasture and then the sparse race traffic moving toward the track.

Shops up the highway from Greensboro were doing far less business Saturday, some of them closed early, some closed for good.

The price of getting by is going up for race fans, and places like tiny Martinsville Speedway feel the pressure first. Inside the bullring raceway, small-business race teams feel the same thing. This ain't the good ol' days anymore.

Rumors are swirling that Petty Enterprises is looking to merge with Dale Earnhardt Inc. Those are similar to the rumors about any number of other race teams at the far end of the garage area, the section of the infield known as the Mergers and Acquisitions Dept.

The jokes swirling about are dark and biting, typical of hard times. What's the worst thing about the economy for the working man? It's worse than divorce. You lose half of everything, but you still have a wife.

The folks standing around at the truck race Saturday had plenty of elbow room, a trend in NASCAR's lower classes. The triple-A Nationwide Series attracted a frighteningly bad crowd last week in Charlotte.

Even the big series has struggled in recent weeks with unstable gas prices all over the Southeast. But at $2.79 a gallon for low-test on the roads leading into the speedway, today at least holds the potential for a man to get up on a Sunday morning like he did in the old days, gather up some friends and head to the track without worrying about tickets or hotel bills. Martinsville's hot dog and beer prices are holding steady in the worst economic times since the Depression.

Noted economist Dale Earnhardt Jr. offered his own assessment of the situation on Friday.

"The economy is in a dire situation," he said. "It's pretty severe, and there's a good chance it's going to continue to get worse."

To come up with his dire prediction, he only needed to look around his own sport. Not only are the Pettys and DEI in talks with other teams but almost every team in the garage in entering a period of musical chairs, in which someone, possibly several teams and drivers, could be out of the sport next year. The small teams such as the Wood Brothers, Robby Gordon Motorsports and Bill Davis Racing, and even mid-sized Ganassi Racing and Gillett-Evernham, are feeling the effects of rising prices and tightening markets.

Sponsors are drying up. DEI could be without sponsorship deals for three of its four cars. Petty has three potential cars for next year but only one sponsor, the Wells Fargo deal with Kyle Petty. Yates racing is concerned it might have only one sponsor for three teams after spending this entire season juggling deals for its two drivers. Michael Waltrip has thrown away the #55 and returned the #44 to the Pettys while cutting back his still-new team to two drivers.

All this swirls about as Martinsville itself endures another round of rumors about the track's future in racing, a tradition when the tour comes here twice a year. Jeff Gordon said Friday he considered this a sacred place, "a national landmark." Of course, the same thing was said about Darlington a few years ago.

Nothing's sacred anymore, not Martinsville, not Petty Enterprises, not Chrylser Corporation, which is rumored to be talking with the devil itself -- General Motors -- about a merger of automotive giants.

The old Dodge boys in the stands have seen a lot in recent years, and almost nothing seems all that holy anymore. Hot dogs are two bucks and a bag of ice is 10. Gas is below three dollars a gallon, and the flea-bag motels want a couple hundred a night. Race fans don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Besides, they have their own to assess the economy.

The yard sales were closing up along U.S. 311 by late Saturday, the small businesses closed for the evening, the churches getting ready for a racing Sabbath. This is a part of the country that still holds to the old ways and still has hope that someone, somewhere, can get them out of this mess.

Almost every yard had a McCain-Palin sign in it as cars eased through Walnut Cove, where the Church of Christ of the Brothers of the Disciples invited motorists to "Come Hear Jesus' Tax Plan." Presumably, some race fans will stop by this morning, though it's more likely they'll all be headed to Martinsville to hear Junior's economic plan.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin @news-record.com