AVONDALE, Ariz. — What’s bad for General Motors can’t be good for NASCAR Chevrolet drivers.

News that General Motors reported a $2.5 billion quarterly loss on Friday and could run out of cash in 2009 without government help left drivers concerned about the brand whose cars are among the fastest in the Sprint Cup Series.

Tony Stewart drives a Toyota this year, but has close ties to General Motors. When Stewart becomes co-owner of his own team next year, he’ll resume his longtime relationship with GM, which already supports Stewart’s open-wheel programs.

“We’re passionate about General Motors. We’re passionate about the Chevy brand and we want them to be successful,” Stewart said at Phoenix International Raceway. “That’s why we’re a part of them, obviously.”

He said the worst part is when he hears about layoffs because he knows that people, not just a company, are suffering.

“As a team owner, you have to worry about that, too, because it trickles down to us also,” Stewart said. “If we’re going to have our sponsors taken away, then we have to lay people off. You are always very concerned about it, but we haven’t seen that effect so far with our programs at either the open-wheel level or Cup level.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said all he can do is his best to promote Chevrolets.

“I do what I’m supposed to do and do my job and try to do the best I can to sell cars for them on Mondays,” he said. “I hope they’ve got the right people in the right places to turn it around and stop the bleeding. That’s all you can hope for.”

Earnhardt doesn’t believe GM will go the way of failed banks.

“They’re too big,” he said. “The government won’t let them fail.”

NASCAR teams already have felt the economic pinch with a series of layoffs, including a small downsizing earlier this week at Hendrick Motorsports.

“We certainly worry about it,” said series points leader Jimmie Johnson, who is poised to win a third straight championship for Hendrick. “I think everyone in the world is worried about their financial future.”

NHRA’s Pedregon makes late charge

Funny Car driver Cruz Pedregon has gone from sixth place, 115 points behind, to a 12-point lead with consecutive wins in the last two events.

Pedregon is seeking his second championship and first since 1992, when he broke up John Force’s stretch of 12 titles in 13 years. If Pedregon does take the title, it will mean Force, with 14, or one of the Pedregons — Cruz or brother Tony, a two-time champ — will have won all but one Funny Car championship since 1990. Gary Scelzi won in 2005.

Cruz Pedregon will go into the season-finale at Pomona, Calif., Nov. 13-16 ahead of runner-up Robert Wilkerson by 12 points and 39 in front of Robert Hight.

Wilkerson is trying to become only the second tuner-driver, and first since Shirl Greer in 1974, to win a Funny Car championship, while Hight, Force’s son-in-law, would love to add his first title to winning rookie of the year in 2005.

In winning his first title, Pedregon finished the season with five straight event wins to pass Force.

“I didn’t want to get caught up in the championship points,” Pedregon said of his latest win last Sunday at Las Vegas. “I just went out there and tried to maintain my emotions because it seemed like every round was like a championship round. And I expect it will be more of the same at Pomona.”

American winners at Silverstone

Sixteen-year-old Conor Daly, son of longtime open-wheel star Derek Daly, won the Walter Hayes Trophy race on Sunday in treacherous conditions at the Silverstone track.

That capped a very successful foray to England by Daly and fellow 2008 Team USA Scholarship winner Josef Newgarden, a 17-year-old from Hendersonville, Tenn., who two weeks earlier became the first American to win the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch.

Daly, from Noblesville, Ind., took the lead on the cold wet day halfway through the race when Scottish Formula Ford champion Graham Carroll slid off the track. He went on to become the youngest driver to win the Hayes trophy, named after one of the originators of the Formula Ford.