CONFIRMED: Roush-Fenway Racing officially announced Thursday morning that Robbie Reiser would assume role of General Manager at Roush-Fenway after the conclusion of Sunday's Ford 400.
ORIGINAL: Matt Kenseth might not be hearing Robbie Reiser's voice in his ear anymore after Sunday's Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, according to ESPN.com's David Newton:
Sources close to the situation told ESPN.com that Robbie Reiser, who has been Matt Kenseth's crew chief since they entered NASCAR's premier series in 2000 and long before that in the Busch Series, will become the general manager at Roush Fenway Racing.
He will replace Max Jones, who will move into the GM role at Robert Yates Racing. RYR and Roush recently formed an alliance that basically will allow them to work as a seven-car operation without violating NASCAR's four-car cap.
If indeed it happens, this will be the first time in Kenseth's NASCAR career that Reiser wasn't calling the shots for him. Together, Kenseth and Reiser have landed one Cup championship in 2003 and 15 race wins since Kenseth ran his first full season in 2000.
Carl Edwards has quietly allowed the brouhaha with fellow Roush driver Matt Kenseth to slowly disappear in the media in good fashion.
Quietly enough, in fact, that he won the pole at Phoenix and no really seemed to care -- nor bring the topic up. After all, there are two races left in the "Hendrick Motorsports Trophy Deciding Circus" and three former winners of the Indianapolis 500 are in the show.
But yes, Edwards did in fact win the pole with a lap of 132.773mph. It's his first of the season and guarantees the No. 99 Ford a spot in the 2008 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona. Edwards bested Martin Truex Jr. for the top spot by just three one-thousandths of a second.
"I told them after that lap, I said, 'That was a blast.' The guys did a great job with the car -- everybody," said Edwards.
The pole for Edwards was his first since he started on the point in the 2005 Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
As for "The Jeff and Jimmie Show", Jeff Gordon will start right behind Edwards in third while Johnson will roll off the grid from the sixth position.
The list of past Indianapolis 500 winners is indeed well-represented in the Nextel Cup grid. Juan Pablo Montoya starts 14th, Sam Hornish Jr. made his first Nextel Cup race and starts 26th and fellow '500' winner Jacques Villeneuve lines up 27th.
The going home list includes all three Michael Waltrip Racing cars, A.J. Allmendinger, John Andretti and Ward Burton.
Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway gave me that feeling of something I haven't seen in a while.
Most likely, I had that feeling because, well, I hadn't.
Sunday's race, the third win in-a-row for Jimmie Johnson, had a grand total of 55 loop lead changes -- the most NASCAR has had in a race since it started keeping tabs on the data provided by the several different scoring loops around the track.
Yes, NASCAR stars of today swapped position, for the lead, multiple times, with much at stake. Awesome!
I can imagine that those high numbers could be easily chalked up to a couple of quality battles -- side by side nonetheless -- that happened during the Dickie's 500 for the lead. (The best example starts at about 8:41)
First, it was Denny Hamlin vs. Matt Kenseth with less than 100 laps to go. Hamlin drove like he hasn't won a race in awhile to battle Kenseth for the lead for several laps. Swapping the position back and forth, Kenseth finally got the better side of the deal when Hamlin lost control of his No. 11 Chevrolet off of turn two. Hamlin never spun the car, but he impacted the wall hard enough to end any chances at a win (starts about 7:57).
Kenseth luckily avoided Hamlin's mess to find himself dueled in another battle in the closing stages on the event.
(Yes, that picture IS the most ridiculous one you've ever seen. Anyways, back to the regularly scheduled programming...)
Jimmie Johnson looked a chef in the final laps of the Dickie's 500 at Texas Motor Speedway Sunday night.
First, he sat Matt Kenseth on the table with a charge to his rear bumper with 15 laps to go.
Then, Johnson backed off and let Kenseth cool down -- as well as the tires on his No. 48 -- and read the perfect recipe for the win.
With four circuits left, Johnson pounced with a knife, cutting into Kenseth's lead and finally cutting him off out of turn two, grabbing the race lead and showing the No. 48 team's brilliance in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.
NASCAR found it in post-race inspection and penalized the driver of the No. 99 Roush-Fenway Ford Fusion the standard 25 driver points for the infraction, though he was allowed to keep the win.
Edwards and his team owner Jack Roush thought that the penalty was not only injust -- stock cars need more rear downforce on tracks like Dover, not less -- and also felt that it was overly harsh.
Last week, they appealed the decision, claiming the penalty was too severe for a Chase driver because of different points standings and the ten races available in the Chase.
The National Stock Car Racing Commission didn't agree and voted today to not overturn or modify the Roush appeal. As a result, Edwards will still sit in sixth place in the Chase standings, 205 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.
Later in the day, be sure to look for some unpleasantries bubbling from the Roush camp over this.
You've gotta believe that Jack Roush is t-i-c-k-e-d.
When Ferrari told Rubens Barichello to dump the 2002 Austrian Gran Prix to allow teammate Michael Schumacher to take the win, the Formula One team was fined $1 million.
Is McLaren Motorsports next?
The team is being investigated by the governing body for possible rule breach of the International Sporting Code, which states it will "never be enforced so as to prevent or impede a competition or the participation of a competitor, save where the FIA concludes that this is necessary for the safe, fair or orderly conduct of motor sport.''
Monaco Gran Prix winner Fernando Alonso's McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton told the press after Sunday's race that he was told to "take it easy."
"He was obviously close to me, and I was told to take it easy. At the end of the day, I am a rookie. I am in my first season in Formula One and I have finished second in only my first Monaco Grand Prix, so I really can't complain. I've got No. 2 on my car. I am the No. 2 driver."
Can't complain? You just said your team gave you an "order" to let your teammate win. Is there a better time to complain? Or ... maybe you just should have IGNORED it, fool. Wouldn't you rather be the rookie who won his first Monaco Gran Prix than the one who gave it away?
What about NASCAR? Is this addressed in its illustrious rulebook? Is it even needed? I can't even ... Can you even imagine Rick Hendrick or Richard Childress or Jack Roush pulling this kind of crap? Or Joe Gibbs? Or any driver putting up with it? What about Penske or Ganassi--in NASCAR or IRL? I can't even ... Why is this tolerated in F1?
Maybe making a deal with the owners of the Boston Red Sox changed where the Curse of the Bambino takes form.
AmeriQuest Mortgage, a new sponsor for Greg Biffle on the Cup Series side for Jack Roush's Roush-Fenway Racing told the team last week that they wanted out of the role. The mortgage company has suffered significant losses recently and is also pulling out of a deal with the Texas Rangers to name their ballpark.
Essentially, the revolving door of sponsors on the side of Biffle's car has just been pushed again. The National Guard left last year for Hendrick Motorsports and other names such as Pennzoil, Post-It Notes, Charter Bank, and Subway have been on the hood since 2004.
Roush Racing team president Geoff Smith was optimistic about the upcoming sponsor search.
"We have the full selling season. Greg Biffle is a fantastic driver. And the economy is still very good, and there's a lot of sponsorship interest right now. There was a period a couple of years ago when it was really, really tight. But we've got lots of time, and there's lots of sponsor interest, so I think we'll be able to work it out just fine."
It's tough not to be optimistic. NAPA has got to have a growing resent for Michael Waltrip not making 4 of 5 races so far and Dominoes has got to find it tough promoting a driver that isn't in the race. There's going to be several openings next year for a high-caliber team to get a yearlong sponsor -- especially if Toyota's struggles continue through November and over 5 teams continue to go home each week.
The news comes on the heels of an announcement from NASCAR that Roush had to get to the NASCAR-mandated team limit of four in the Cup Series by the 2010 season, in addition to Biffle's car being impounded by NASCAR after the Food City 500 for being too low.
Conspiracy theorists (yeah, you too, Jack.) take note. And Jamie McMurray better take note, as well. Roush has got to get rid of one driver somehow.
CONFIRMED: Roush-Fenway Racing officially announced Thursday morning that Robbie Reiser would assume role of General Manager at Roush-Fenway after the conclusion of Sunday's Ford 400.
Carl Edwards has quietly allowed 
Carl Edwards 
When Ferrari told Rubens Barichello to dump the 
Maybe making a deal with the owners of the Boston Red Sox changed where the Curse of the Bambino takes form.
