Penske Racing and Ryan Newman have mutually agreed to move in new
directions
at the conclusion of the 2008 season.
"We want to thank Ryan for
his hard work and contributions to Penske Racing
over the past nine years,"
said team owner Roger Penske. "We wish Ryan all the
best for the future and
we'll continue to focus our efforts on making the Chase
with Ryan and the
Alltel Dodge team this season."
The driver of the Penske Racing
#12 Alltel car for the 2009 NASCAR Cup
season will be announced in the near
future.
This news all but confirms that Newman will join the newly announced Stewart/Haas Racing team for the 2009 season. Still, there is no word what his car number would be. However, Richard Childress Racing has stated that Jack Daniels is in a contract with the team until the conclusion of the 2009 season, and that UPS will NOT be joining the #07 team of Clint Bowyer. So it looks like UPS could be on board with Newman if the jump is made to Stewart/Haas Racing.
Now, that leaves the empty seat in the #12 car for 2009. It would seem that the lead candidates would be David Stremme and Casey Mears. Stremme continued to improve his performance the last few seasons, but has been regulated to the Nationwide Series this year thanks to Chip Ganassi's bringing Dario Franchitti on board. Shows what Chip knows with NASCAR, as that team has closed due to sponsership issues. Stremme has also been running test sessions for Penske Racing for much of the year as well. Mears was recently confirmed to be out of the #5 car for Hendrick Motorsports following this season and will be replaced by seasoned veteran Mark Martin. Mears was able to show some potential at Ganassi (but so was Stremme). However, I'd give Casey a break on his struggles at HMS. The #25/#5 has always been the red-headed stepchild car at HMS. Honestly, I have no idea who it will be in the #12 next year, but both are deserving of a ride. I'm pulling for Stremme though.
One other note of importance. Penske Racing will need a new sponsor for the #12 next season as Alltel has been bought out by Verizon. Since Sprint is a phone company, all major competiting phone companies will be gone from the sport following this year. Yes, this includes the AT&T sponsorship on Jeff Burton's car. Alltel and Cingular were granted right to stay in the Cup Series as sponsors, that was until they were taken over by other companies (Verizon, AT&T). So, maketability may also become a factor in Penske's decision.
2 comments:
I had not thought about the sponsor fiasco that the phone companies were dealing with in quite a while. Along a similar line, will Budweiser continue to sponsor the #9 in light of InBev buying Anheuser-Busch?
Is there always this much driver movement? Also it seems odd compared to other sports where "players" announce they are going to switch "teams" in the middle of the season.
Also, thanks for the link!
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