With oil setting record highs, daily commuters aren’t the only ones hurting; soaring gas prices are also hurting the racing industry. 

From the “weekend warriors” at small tracks around the country to some of the biggest teams in NASCAR, it seems everyone is feeling the fuel price pinch.

Racing fuel prices are up 50% from where they were in 2005, according to Sunoco Fuels. Prices have gotten so high that Hendrick Motorsports, the racing company behind drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Jeff Gordon, estimates it will spend $760,000 more this year on fuel, according to Scott Lampe, vice president and chief financial officer of Hendrick.

“We are trying to buy fewer quantities of everything, because this year  we are going to spend about $60,000 more in diesel for trucks, and about $700,000 more for aviation,” he said. And even though Hendrick implemented a fuel conservation program two years ago, it’s not enough these days.

“We already had the culture in place in terms of being smart about fuel purchases, so that’s the good news. The bad news is that when prices started going up, we were already into the cheap stuff, so there’s no way for us to cut costs,” he said.

If high fuel prices continue into next year, Hendrick may look into driving to more races. If the company went back to driving its teams to races in Talladega, Darlington, Atlanta and Bristol, the company would save $70,000 annually, roughly 10% of the amount they’re overspending on fuel this year. Other options for cutting back include taking fewer employees to the track, decreasing cell phone use, or delaying facility maintenance, Lampe said.

And Hendrick isn’t alone. Even NASCAR, which gets its competition gas for free from a Sunoco sponsorship, is feeling the pain when it comes to traveling to the different race tracks, said Andrew Giangola, a NASCAR spokesman.

“We travel to 38 races across the nation, and every NASCAR team has a convoy that travels across the country. Higher gas prices are affecting the amount of money the teams spend to gas up the haulers to get from race to race,” he said.  “Like any company that has a lot of trucks, we are coping by absorbing the costs, but eventually it does come out of the bottom line.”

And it’s worse for the smaller race car teams across the country.

“Your weekly racers and weekend warriors- some of them have big pocketbooks behind them and some of them don’t. The ones that don’t are staying put at home and not traveling,” said Greg Holmes, president of Baton Rouge Raceway, a venue for independent drivers throughout the Southeast. 

Although Holmes has been able to find enough cars to “put on a show” this year, he said the average number of competitors entering weekend races is down. In 2007, he averaged 28 cars per race, but since the beginning of this year, he said he’s lucky if he gets 21.

Holmes thinks many smaller race tracks around the country will probably start hosting races less frequently than every weekend.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of race tracks go to once a month racing or twice a month,” said Holmes.  “They’ll do whatever they’ve got to do to keep the doors open, because once you say ‘We’re not racing anymore,’ you’re never going to get the people back.”

To keep the business alive, Holmes is helping drivers cut costs by cutting down on the number of laps at races.

“When I booked the races at the various tracks, I booked them all as 50 lap races. But so far this year, we have had to do 40 lap races instead,” said Holmes. “This benefits the drivers, because it’s less laps on their motors, and less gas.”

According to Holmes, the gas racers use in their cars costs a minimum of $7.50 a gallon, which equates to about $350 a drum. “I’ve seen many types priced at over $600 a drum,” he said.

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, for most racers it’s about winning.

“Winning is everything, and the guys who are really into it will do anything it takes to win, and if that means buying $11 a gallon gas, they’ll do it,” Holmes said. “Racing is mental more than physical. So if they think Joe Blow has got the higher octane gas, they are going to spend the money to try to keep up with him.”