The economy just plain sucks. People who do have money in the banks, stock, and bonds are losing it due to low intrest rates. Right now you would be better off burrying your money in a mason jar than trying to put it in the bank. I don't think its totally due to fuel either, it just gets blamed. So many of us try to live outside of our means and we got so use to having trmendous debt (financing everything we buy) that when something such as fuel goes up it puts too much of a strain on us financially. Right now our business is very slow, but we are surviving. 90% of businesses are down from this time last year.

I think you will see more and more people step back from racing for a little while until the economy levels out.