FanHouse Nascar Silly Season

Less than a year ago -- February to be exact -- rumors were swirling that Bobby Labonte would finish 2008 with Petty Enterprises and move to Richard Childress Racing for 2009.

It made sense at the time because Labonte's sponsor, General Mills, signed on at RCR to sponsor a 4th team at the operation and Labonte had a contract to drive 15 races for RCR in the Nationwide Series. Eventually, that rumor fell apart and Labonte re-signed with Petty for four more years.

Thursday, however, those plans completely changed again when Labonte and Petty agreed to amicably part ways immediately -- leaving the 2000 Sprint Cup Series champion without a ride for the moment in 2009 and continuing a nasty downward spiral of Petty Enterprises.

Petty plans to still run, at a minimum, a single-car team in 2009 but doesn't yet have a driver lined up.

Looking back, I can imagine that if the opportunity was available for Labonte to move to RCR like the rumor said, he's probably kicking himself slightly right now. However, we don't know for sure if such an offer was on the table and you surely can't fault Labonte for his loyalty.

Joe Nemechek and the Furniture Row Racing team were the latest NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team to see some significant cutbacks as the sport heads into what could be the most anxious and interesting off-season it has ever seen.

Nemecheck, driver of the No. 78 Chevrolet who won the April pole at Talladega Superspeedway, was notified that his team is looking at the high-probability chance of not competing in 2009 -- just days after the team owner indicated the team would compete but with a reduced schedule.

Aside from Nemechek and Furniture Row Racing's situation that very likely saw a number of the team's employees at the shop located in Colorado get laid off this week, NASCAR teams have been letting team members go left and right in the past week.

We saw last week that Dale Earnhardt Inc., and Chip Ganassi Racing merged to a four-car operation and eliminated 116 jobs from the new Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing operation and the news continued in full force after the season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway last Sunday.

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.

Brad Coleman's entry and exit to and from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with Hall of Fame Racing came to an abrupt halt after just one race, ESPN says.

[Brad] Coleman's fortunes changed quickly [...] According to Hall of Fame Racing, Coleman is now a free agent. He is no longer under contract to Hall of Fame.

Coleman's lone Sprint Cup race came at Michigan International Speedway in August when the 20-year-old driver replaced a fired J.J. Yeley in the No. 96 DLP Toyota. In that event, he started 37th and finished 43rd.

For giggles, I think I'll cite my previous post on Coleman's quick turn up to NASCAR's top division:

Hall of Fame sure isn't a place where a driver is going to go win championships, and knowing that Coleman just might be making a career mistake of jumping in a car that races in the Sprint Cup Series but doesn't compete.

Now I get that "just might be making a career mistake" isn't a "Coleman will be cut after one race"-type prediction, but come on, the writing was on the wall for this kid and his move to a team I wouldn't even drive for if offered the chance.

Yeah, Hall of Shame Fame Racing is just that bad, but this certainly leaves plenty of questions as to why it took so long for word to come out about Coleman.

Chip Ganassi has found a way to make his team not as pathetic as before and Dale Earnhardt Inc. has found a way to keep grasping at being a relevant Sprint Cup Series team.

That method? Join the two programs together to create strange bedfellows, cut costs and hope that a math equation of subpar plus subpar finally equals something good.

Yep, Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates will be teaming up to make a four-car team in 2009.

Two of motorsports' biggest names – Earnhardt and Ganassi – will launch a four-car team beginning in 2009 through the combination of the motorsports operations of Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI) and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, Inc. (CGRFS). NASCAR stars Martin Truex Jr. and Juan Pablo Montoya will drive the Nos. 1 and 42 respectively and future star Aric Almirola will be behind the wheel of the No. 8. The driver of the No. 41 will be named in the near future.

For those of you keeping track at home, this combination of forces currently includes 4 cars, 3 drivers and 2.5 sponsorships. Let's hope that changes before 2009.

Additionally, the overriding rumor is that Chevrolet will be the manufacturer for the organization, mainly because it's very likely Dale Earnhardt would rise from his grave to haunt anything bearing his name that doesn't bear a bow tie. Dodge, Ganassi's current partner, is apparently being shoved out.

ESPN.com's David Newton is reporting the driver who is replacing Casey Mears in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet in 2009 -- veteran Mark Martin -- might find himself getting a jump on that plan in the coming weeks.

Hendrick Motorsports is considering a plan that would put Mark Martin in the No. 5 car he'll take over in 2009 for the final race of this season at Homestead [-Miami] Speedway.

A contingency to the plan is getting Casey Mears, the current driver of the No. 5, into the fourth car at Richard Childress Racing that he will drive next season.

But in order to do that Mears would have to drive the No. 33, not the No. 07 that he is slated for because Clint Bowyer is driving that car in the Chase. Team owner Richard Childress said he is willing to put Mears in the No. 33 unsponsored if necessary.

"He won't go without a ride," Childress said.

Why wait until the last race at Homestead, you might ask? Well according to Newton, Martin is scheduled to drive in his current Dale Earnhardt Inc. part-time gig for the season's third and second to last races in Texas and Phoenix.

I'm not real sure, though, that making such a switch would truly benefit Martin or Mears (if ends up racing for RCR at Homestead).

FanHouse's campaign to preserve A.J. Allmendinger as a driver for Red Bull Racing has failed, thanks to an announcement from team head Jay Frye Tuesday morning.

From the team's web site:

Red Bull Racing Team and driver AJ Allmendinger have agreed to part ways for the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Allmendinger is in his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season driving the No. 84 Red Bull Toyota, which currently sits 34th in owners' points.

"AJ is a talented driver and we really enjoyed working with him," said RBRT Vice President and General Manager Jay Frye. "He's come a long way in just two years and we wish him nothing but the best."

That last line -- "we wish him nothing but the best" -- just seems to have a certain Jay Frye-is-totally-BS'ing-us ring to it, doesn't it?

At least he got to meet Jack Bauer before he lost his ride.

J.J. Yeley's fall from one of the top teams in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series took another tumble Wednesday afternoon as he was dropped from his ride in the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Toyota.

Yeley, who has put together an unremarkable season of one whole Top-5 (it came in the same race that Kurt Busch won thanks to rain at New Hampshire) after getting bounced from Joe Gibbs Racing in 2007 will be replaced with Brad Coleman, the team announced today:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Aug. 6, 2008) – Hall of Fame Racing officials announced Wednesday that NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Brad Coleman, who has been under contract as a test driver for Hall of Fame Racing since November 2007, will make his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut by piloting the No. 96 DLP HDTV Toyota Camry in the Aug. 17 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.

Coleman, 20, is currently running a full-time season in the Nationwide Series and has put together equally unimpressive results with a single Top-10 at Las Vegas in 2008. He drove for Joe Gibbs Racing's Nationwide Series program in a limited role in 2007.

FanHouse's Geoffrey Miller is on location & blogging away at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Sunday's 15th Running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

Martin Truex Jr. appears set to end the rumor mill swirling around his future.

ESPN.com's David Newton reported on Saturday that "several sources" are confirming that Truex will now stay right where he's at -- with Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- until at least 2010:

The 28-year-old New Jersey native has agreed in principle to a two-year deal that will keep him at Dale Earnhardt Inc. through the 2010 season, multiple sources close to the situation told ESPN.com on Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Sources said an official announcement is expected any day, and that details with multiple sponsors remain to be finalized.

Truex, asked if he has an agreement, said: "We're getting there, yeah. Things are going well right. I'm pretty happy. I just want to think about racing this weekend."

That quote from Truex seems to seal the deal for me, as he definitely didn't make any attempt to deny the report. He pretty much gave the "yeah, that's been correctly reported but I can't say anything yet so I'm going to get back in my race car and stay away from you media-types"-style answer.

I'm glad Truex has got his deal seemingly worked out with DEI, a team where he'll remain as the No. 1 driver in the camp. I don't think, however, that re-signing with the team will lead him towards a Sprint Cup championship any time soon.

McMurray Grows Weary of Constant Free Agency Reports

It must be tough to have the media firing you from a high-profile job before you get the news, unless, you know, the media is wrong.

The Sprint Cup Series needs to throw some shrimp on the barby, as Australian-native Marcos Ambrose will be movin' on up to NASCAR's top division for a full-time ride in 2009.

And yes, I promise I'm done with Australian generalizations.

Ambrose will make the move into Sprint Cup with JTG Daugherty Racing -- a partnership between Marcos' current Nationwide Series team (JTG) and ESPN analyst/former NBA player Brad Daugherty. The partnership will continue to field two Nationwide teams in addition to the newly-created Sprint Cup team.

I'm stoked to have Ambrose in the Sprint Cup series because the guy has pure talent. He's a two-time champion of Australia's V8 Supercar Series, and apparently did it in quite an impressive manner as he won in them in a Ford for the manufacturer's first titles in nearly 20 years. From what I gather, the guy is quite heralded in Australia -- nearly to the level of Dale Earnhardt Jr. here in the States.

Ambrose has one Sprint Cup start under his belt coming from last month's road course race at Infineon Raceway. He raced in the Top-5 for much of the race until transmission troubles knocked him to a 42nd-place finish. More importantly though, he didn't back down from on-track skirmishes and made a few folks mad at him -- something NASCAR needs more of.