FanHouse YatesRacing

Paul Menard's new season with a new team is starting out on a refreshingly good note.

Menard, who left the Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing team following 2008 to drive the No. 98 Ford at Yates Racing, drew the pole for Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout at Daytona during a made-for-TV draw "party" Thursday night just outside of the speedway.

The lineup -- one that is set completely at random for the 28 eligible drivers -- has left some drivers that don't fall into "favorites" category sitting at the front while others, including last-place starter and former Shootout winner Jeff Gordon, will have plenty of traffic to negotiate at the green flag.

Move over Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, the newly crafted alliance between Yates Racing and Hall of Fame Racing -- I don't know if we can call it a merger just yet -- has landed 2000 Sprint Cup Champion Bobby Labonte.

Labonte, who left Petty Enterprises in December, moves to the team to drive the No. 96 car that, thanks to that new Yates/HoF alliance, will be a Ford. Surprisingly enough, Labonte's move also helped bring a new sponsor into the sport despite many teams struggling to even keep funding from the ones they currently hold.

Ask.com will serve as Labonte's primary sponsor on the No. 96 in addition to taking a role as the "official seach engine of NASCAR" -- something that sounds like it's going to benefit fans.

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: Travis Kvapil
Team: No. 28 Yates Racing Ford
'08 Final Standing: 23rd (-3300)
Best Race: Aaron's 499 at Talladega (6th-place)
Worst Race: Bank of America 500 at Charlotte (42nd-place)

Season in a box: Aside from a few Top-10s, Kvapil's (that's Kwah-pil) first season with Yates Racing showed signs of potential amid plenty of signs of driving for an underfunded team.

Matt Kenseth's contract at Roush Fenway Racing got extended Thursday afternoon and that was seemingly bad news for his teammate Jamie McMurray.

Kenseth got a new "multi-year dear" from RFR to keep him as the driver of the No. 17 Ford for well past 2010, when his current contract was set to expire. Terms weren't disclosed by the team, but I'd imagine the contract puts Kenseth in a position to make RFR his final place of stock car employment with either a heavily extended contract from his current one or one loaded with options.

Kenseth, a native of Cambridge, Wisc., turns 37 in March.

For teammate McMurray -- who's been nothing short of a disappointment during his time at RFR but showed some flashes of brilliance towards the end of the 2008 -- Kenseth's re-signing might be a nail in the coffin for his future at RFR.

Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway had a grand total of two cautions for actual on-track wrecks, and had David Gilliland not intentionally wrecked Juan Pablo Montoya, that number would have been cut in half.

First, the video:



I saw Montoya's crash live Sunday during our live blog here on the 'House, and immediately felt my stomach drop for how blatantly intentional Gilliiland's move was.

Who knew David Gilliland was that type of racer?

UPDATE: Rusty Wallace released a statement Wednesday morning denying that he plans to make a return to NASCAR in 2009.

"I love Kenny to death; he's been trying to get me back in a car ever since I retired after 2005. While any rumors like this are certainly flattering, they're untrue. I have a long-term commitment to ABC and ESPN and I really love what I'm doing right now," said Wallace in a statement.

To me, this whole deal seems pretty bizarre, especially given that Rusty's brother put out the rumor. I have a feeling there might be more to this story than what meets the eye, but for now, it appears to be dead in the water.

Original: 1989 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Rusty Wallace is "considering" a return to NASCAR's top series in 2009, his brother Kenny Wallace said Tuesday night in an article posted on SPEEDTV.com.

"Six different crew members came up to me and said they'd heard a rumor Rusty was coming back to drive for [Dale Earnhardt Inc]," said Wallace in the article.

"These rumors get started in the Mooresville [N.C.] area because the [NASCAR team] shops are so close to each other and nothing can be kept secret for long. All I can say is that where there's smoke, there's fire. And he is definitely considering stepping back into a race car."

Rusty, who retired in 2005 after 25 seasons in NASCAR with 55 career wins, currently works as an analyst for ESPN and owns two Nationwide Series cars, one of which is driven by his son Steven.

I'm having a tough time not believing what Kenny said in the article for the sheer fact that he is Rusty's brother, and that that would seemingly prevent Wallace for spreading untrue rumors.

A huge wreck coming off of Turn 11 at Watkins Glen International Raceway put the Sprint Cup Series' Centurion Boats at the Glen under the red flag with just eight laps to go Sunday.

Nine cars were involved in the big crash that saw David Gililland and Bobby Labonte take some of the hardest hits the NASCAR world has seen at a road course in a long time. Labonte walked away from his car but will be transferred to a local hospital for further evaluation.