FanHouse FelixSabates

It's not too difficult to get the fact that the world as a whole is entering a pretty tough time financially. And when these things happen, some of the first industries to take a hit include entertainment and sports, thanks to people being more fiscally responsible.

We've already seen NASCAR ticket sales dropping pretty incredibly over the past few weeks -- last weekend's race at Atlanta was a glaring reminder -- and the next shoe to fall in the NASCAR economic climate appears to be sponsorship of race teams.

So teams, faced with the idea of racing in the near future with decreased funding, are apparently looking at making drastic cuts to the number of employees in the race shops. And when I say drastic, I'm not kidding.

They're not the cream of the crop, but they have solid footing in the Top 35 heading to Martinsville. They don't have to worry about qualifying, but they need to make adjustments if they want to secure their spot in the Chase. Here are your teams in the middle of the road:

Chip Ganassi / Felix Sabates: Two teams solidly in the Top 35--the #40 in 11th and the #42 in 19th. Their third team, the #41 isn't faring quite as well in 29th, but they're inside for at least one more week.

The CGRFS cars have gained an average of 3.3 positions from the end of last season.

While the teams cars are on the rise, so is one of the team's stars. Juan Pablo Montoya's entry into NASCAR is one of the most talked about stories in all of auto racing--there's the F1 angle, the international angle, the diversity angle and the he'll push anyone and anything out of his way to win angle ...

Ganassi is also off to a good start in the Indy Racing League, which kicked off Saturday and saw the third one-two finish for Ganassi drivers Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon.