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FORT WORTH, Texas -- An April Fool's Day gag that frightened NASCAR fans and insiders could foreshadow a dramatic new look to the sport.

There are some, though, working to make sure the joke never becomes reality.

Car and Driver's bogus online article -- it has since been removed from the magazine's Web site -- stated that President Obama ordered General Motors and Chrysler out of NASCAR in exchange for additional financial support. No such action occurred, but the story reignited a debate of NASCAR's value to the Detroit automakers.

"It's a very turbulent time right now,'' says Peter De Lorenzo, founder of the Internet magazine www.autoextremist.com, which details the auto industry.

So many questions remain unanswered as the government bails out General Motors and Chrysler. The government loaned both companies a total of $17.4 billion in December, but they need more.

The Obama administration rejected GM's reorganization plan last week and gave the company until June 1 to update its revitalization plan. The administration also instructed Chrysler to complete its proposed alliance with Fiat within 30 days.

De Lorenzo says that he's more concerned about Chrysler's future in NASCAR with Dodge than that of General Motors.

"They're so precarious,'' De Lorenzo says of Chrysler. "It will take some convincing probably from Chrysler to Fiat why they should stay (in NASCAR).''

Help also could come from Congress. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican whose North Carolina district is home to most Sprint Cup teams, plans to campaign colleagues and detail NASCAR's value to the automakers in light of the fake story.

"I hope that article is useful in alerting people to the fact that this is a plausible scenario, but one that is absolutely not in the interest of American automakers,'' says Brock McCleary, communications director for Rep. McHenry.

"If you're an automaker, you want to be in NASCAR. That's why Toyota fought so hard to be in NASCAR. So, if you want American automakers to succeed, you want them in NASCAR.''

Yet, some taxpayers will ask why, in essence, their money is going to racing.

"If the government is going to bail out any company, they are open to scrutiny at that point,'' says Jeff Burton, who drives a Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. "I think they're open to questions from the taxpayers, and I think those questions rightfully need to be answered. What it boils down to is if companies quit marketing, if companies quit appealing to their fans and the people that buy their products, they're destined to fail.''

Dodge and Chevrolet officials have made cuts in their racing programs but still spend millions. Companies do not reveal their NASCAR budgets but De Lorenzo estimates Chrysler spends $45 million, Ford $60 million and General Motors $90 million a year on marketing and competition. De Lorenzo says that GM's figure is down from an estimated peak of $120-$140 million a few years ago.

Even with sponsorship, car sales continue to plummet compared to last year. Autodata reported that sales of GM products in March were down 45 percent from March 2008. Chrysler saw a drop of 39 percent with Ford down 41 percent and Toyota down 39 percent.

The question is, though, what those numbers might be if those companies weren't in NASCAR. Some suggest the decreases would be more significant.

Pat Suhy, General Motors' group manager of oval track racing, says NASCAR is a natural fit for his company. He says about 40 percent of NASCAR fans are Chevrolet backers. That compares to a reach of about 20 percent of the overall U.S. audience for Chevrolet.

Suhy says that GM considers three main factors in determining its involvement. It examines market size (NASCAR has the largest fan base of any American motorsports series), ability to win with resources invested (Chevrolet has won the past four Cup titles) and return of investment.

Dodge officials stress that they also examine their return on what they invest in the sport to make sure they are maximizing what they spend. De Lorenzo says such data should help the car manufacturers justify their racing programs.

"I don't envision a scenario that the Obama administration says you can't race,'' De Lorenzo says.

To reach the NASCAR audience, manufacturers provide many services for teams from paying them to providing most parts and pieces for the car and access to engineering programs and wind tunnel facilities. One manufacturer representative estimated that 10-20 percent of a Cup team's budget, depending on the team's size, could come from automakers through cash and services.

With that investment, some, including De Lorenzo, suggest that NASCAR should do more to help preserve the manufacturers' role in the sport. NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston cites a variety of rule changes from a testing ban to the single-engine rule and the Car of Tomorrow as cutting costs for teams and manufacturers.

"That gives teams the opportunity to keep costs low,'' Poston says.

For as much as the manufacturers mean to the sport, NASCAR chairman Brian France looks at the issue in another way.

"The bigger issue for us is jobs that could be affected, the potential race fans working in all of those factories,'' France told The Washington Post after speaking at the IMG World Congress of Sport this week in Miami. "That's much bigger to us than direct sponsorship support. I don't want to minimize it, every sponsor is important &ellipses; (but) they've already reduced sponsorship, frankly.''

Eddie Gossage, president of Texas Motor Speedway, suggests that the automakers' status in NASCAR shouldn't even be an issue with the government.

"The government that gives us $100 hammers and $1,000 toilets does not need to be running an automobile industry,'' he says. "They cannot run it as good as GM can run it. They cannot run it as good as Ford and Chrysler can run it. And anybody that thinks they can is mistaken.''

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin. long@news-record.com