Allmendinger, along with GEM, majority owner George Gillett and Ray Evernham Enterprises were named earlier this week in Iredell County (N.C.) as defendents by an attorney representing Elliott Sadler in a possible suit alleging breach of contract, according to David Poole of The Charlotte Observer.
Sadler, as we were surprised about earlier in the week, appears to be on the outs from GEM's No. 19 Dodge in favor of Allmendinger in 2009 -- despite signing a contract extension this past spring with the team through 2010.
Poole noted in the article that "Sadler plans to seek injunctive relief, declaratory relief/specific performance, consequential and punitive damages as a resultof Defendants anticipatory and actual breach of Plantiff's Driving Services Agreement [...]."
All of the legal lingo could more appropriately described as Sadler being extremely irritated and desiring to grab all of the money from GEM he can because of the loss of external revenue (personal contracts, etc.) he stands to lose by not driving in the Sprint Cup Series full time in 2009.
Warning: Objects in this post may be the only way to successfully live through the NASCAR off-season. For best results, read rearview mirror early and often.
Driver: Kasey Kahne Team: No. 9 Gillette Evernham Motorsports Dodge '08 Final Standing: 14th (-2599) Best Race: Charlotte & Pocono (1st-place) Worst Race: Michigan & Bristol (40th-place)
Season in a box: 2008 started out decently for what many female NASCAR fans consider the sport's most-eligible bachelor, but by the the time the season ended, Kahne's biggest feather in the cap was being the top-performing Dodge in a dismal season for the manufacturer.
The famed No. 43, the legendary Petty blue and everything that NASCAR's "King" Richard Petty helped to produce in his legendary 200-win and seven-championship career at Petty Enterprises seems to be slipping fast.
The team released 35 to 39 more employees this week on top of over over 30 that were let go immediately following the Sprint Cup season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November, bringing the total to nearly 70 people. ESPN says roughly 54 people remain at the shop.
Those 54 people are apparently waiting on any bit of good news that may come their way in terms of their employment -- and that news might just involve a merger with Gillette-Evernham Motorsports. Such a deal would see the famous No. 43 and possibly 2000 Sprint Cup champ Bobby Labonte move to the GEM stable to create a four-car team.
ESPN's David Newton said a possibility remains that the merger would happen and Labonte move to the GEM No. 41 Target ride while A.J. Allmendinger takes over the No. 43.
Petty's problems come directly from the fact that the team lacks full-season support for the two teams it wants to race in 2009 -- Labonte's No. 43 and a car for the young Chad McCumbee. General Mills left the team at the end of 2008 and will sponsor Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer in 2009.
Even more surprising is that a face of Petty Enterprises no longer associates himself with the team.
Carpenter failed to make last Sunday's race at Talladega, and later had somewhat of a confrontation in plain view of the entire Talladega garage with his crew chief who blamed Patrick -- not the car -- as the reason the No. 10 car wasn't in the race.
Carpentier, who was already scheduled to leave the team at the end of 2009, later posted a response to the incident on his web site:
"I think it's a complete lack of respect," said Carpentier. "I never was shy to take the blame when I thought it was my fault, but here, everybody knows that it's like driving in a straight line."
"I've looked at the timing data and we were already three-tenths below the time we needed to qualify when I went below the line. I went low because I felt we had to try everything. I gave it all I had, but now he blames me? This is totally unacceptable. It's not as if my teammates were on the first row! They both ran slower than me!"
It's hard to deny Carpentier's logic, but at the same time, he and his publicist had to know that it was a risky move by posting the team's dirty laundry for everyone to see -- especially when its against a team that had a gossip-filled firing of Jeremy Mayfield a few years ago that revealed a team owner's relationship with a female driver, among other things.
On the Carpentier side of things, word came out Wednesday that Gillette-Evernham Motorsports has officially made NASCAR's favorite driving Canuck a free agent after his first season in a race car with fenders.
Carpentier is being let go effective at the end of 2008 in favor of the younger, more marketable but seemingly-similarly (say that five times) talented Reed Sorenson. Sorenson is departing Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 41 ride after having a disappointing foray into the Sprint Cup Series racing with that team.
Carpentier's story is one that just makes you want to frown and say "that just ain't fair" because of his noted improvement from when he started driving a NASCAR (hasn't even been a year yet) to now, on top of his interesting and always honest personality. Given the right opportunity with a patient car owner and sponsor, Carpentier could easily succeed as a solid driver in NASCAR.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen, and that's a shame.
Speaking of potential shames (Can you really make that plural? Probably not. Works for me, though.) the future relationship betwee Red Bull Racing and A.J. Allmendinger appears headed toward a crossroads in the very near future with a decision on 2009 coming soon.
And as he did so, rookie Canadian driver Patrick Carpentier in first year with GEM's No. 10 car could read the writing on the wall.
Simply, the team was placing him on the back burner of its sponsorship search -- meaning he more than likely won't be in a sponsored car if he decides to stick with the GEM team in 2009 because the emphasis will now be on Sorenson.
"They hired Reed Sorenson for next year, so it's over," Carpentier says. "They're working on a fourth team and looking for sponsorship, but you know how that goes."
So Carpentier says he's a free agent. "I'm talking with other teams to see what's out there," the Montreal native says.
I'd classify what was said by Carpentier as another round of those "you can't blame him"-type comments.
Reed Sorenson isn't waiting for Chip Ganassi Racing to figure out the Car of Tomorrow.
The 22-year-old driver signed a multiyear contract to join Gillett Evernham Motorsports next season, where he'll join Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler.
Sorenson said his decision to leave Ganassi, where he began his NASCAR career as a precocious 18-year-old, was difficult but necessary.
"I'm going over here to try to make myself a better racecar driver," Sorenson said during a conference call Tuesday shortly after the announcement. "I wanted to be more competitive and I wanted to have some more opportunities to win races and things like that."
For Sorenson fans, this is great news, but for Patrick Carpentier fans it's probably not.
Busch, who has pulled triple duty in all three of NASCAR's top divisions on a couple of race weekends in 2008, has been quite a busy guy while riding trains, planes, and automobiles to get to each race on those adventuresome weekends. (OK, maybe he's not been on any trains, but you get the picture.)
And Carpentier doesn't want any of that business, so he's decided to focus all of his efforts on winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series race in Montreal on Aug. 2 instead of skipping back and forth between that event and the Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway.
The road course event in Montreal is essentially what got Carpentier into Gillette Evernham Motorsports' No. 10 Sprint Cup ride one year ago after he nearly won the event in his first NASCAR start and sat on the pole.
It was quite an impressive effort for the former open-wheeler, and his first full-time season in Sprint Cup has had about as much success as one would expect from a true stock car rookie. He sat on the pole at New Hampshire and recorded his best finish of 14th at Daytona just three weeks ago.
The No. 10 currently sits 39th in owner point standings.
Kasey Kahne truly had the best car Sunday afternoon at Pocono Raceway, and despite the interesting race strategies applied by Top-5 finishers Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt Jr., he managed to muscle his No. 9 Dodge to his second win of 2008.
Vickers, Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, and a host of others got off the pit sequence in the race's final 70 laps. The move especially played out well in terms of track position for Vickers and Earnhardt Jr., while Gordon deviated from the strategy on the final caution flag by choosing to head to pit road.
Last week's Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway sure didn't draw many cautions or wrecks.
Kyle Busch managed his first win with new team Joe Gibbs Racing as well as a first in the Sprint Cup Series for Toyota. Elliott Sadler, though, didn't have quite as an impressive of day, but he still won the "video of the week".
Watch below at Sadler spins off turn 2 and across the "gopher cam" embedded in the track at 1:01.
The spin for Sadler was his third of the day, and from the sounds of it on his radio chatter, he was more than ready to get out of an evil car despite not making hard contact with the wall.
I bet this isn't what A.J. Allmendinger signed up for with Gillett-Evernham Motorsports contacted him about driving for the Sprint Cup team in 2009.
The famed No. 43, the legendary Petty blue and everything that NASCAR's "King" 
Reed Sorenson
Patrick Carpentier
Reed Sorenson
You can now call Reed Sorenson 
