Stewart's move creates driver options
At the end of a week filled with rumors, decisions and announcments regarding Tony Stewart's future with and without Joe Gibbs Racing, the man in charge finally had his say on the subject.
Team owner Gibbs and JGR president J.D. Gibbs, Joe's son, addressed the media prior to Saturday's LifeLock.com 400 at Joliet's Chicagoland Speedway. The spectrum of topics began with the decision to release Stewart from a contract that ran through 2009 and continued with Stewart's 50 percent ownership deal with Haas CNC Racing and driver options for JGR.
"First of all, we didn't let him go," Joe said with a laugh. "Tony came in and said he wanted to leave. We had a contract through next year and we had talked about that.
"The farther we went with it and the more we talked about it, we just reached the conclusion that it'd probably be best under these set of circumstances to go ahead and let Tony pursue another option here," he said.
On Thursday Stewart announced his ownership deal with Haas CNC, the company to be called Stewart-Haas Racing. Now the speculation turns to driver options for Stewart-Haas and JGR.
Will JGR move up 18-year-old phenom Joey Logano to a full-time Sprint Cup ride in 2009? Will both JGR and Stewart vie for the services of Ryan Newman, whose contract with Penske ends after this season?
It's all up in the air.
"Driving for Tony's team is an option," Newman said. "He's got an open seat. Obviously, you guys marked me as a lead candidate to get in there, so it's an option."
One possibility is that JGR will expand to four teams, allowing Logano and another driver to join current Sprint Cup points leader Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.
"I think for us it's probably early for us to say exactly what's going to happen," Gibbs said.
The King: Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the first race run by legendary driver Richard Petty. NASCAR and Chicagoland Speedway honored Petty this week, culminating in a tribute at Saturday's LifeLock.com 400 in Joliet that included all 43 Sprint Cup drivers wearing Petty's trademark Charlie 1 Horse cowboy hat during the pre-race ceremonies.
After making his 1958 debut, Petty notched a record 200 victories and claimed seven series championships leading up to his retirement 16 years ago.
"I just think I was a lucky son of a gun to be born at the right place at the right time under the right circumstances with a little bit of talent and a lot of talented people around me to put me in a position to be where I'm at today," said Petty, 71.
The name game: In an interesting twist of support, Sprint Cup driver Robby Gordon and his main sponsor, Jim Beam, teamed up this week in a campaign to preserve the Wrigley Field name on the Cubs' historic ballpark.
In big letters on Gordon's hood, in addition to the Jim Beam logo, read "SaveOurName.com." It's a promotion leading fans to an online petition to prevent the stadium from changing names.
My kind of town? Because Joliet is more than 40 miles from Chicago, two-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was asked if he thought racing at Chicagoland Speedway really felt like racing in Chicagoland.
"I do because when we ran on Sundays I would go up to Chicago and enjoy the city," he said. "This weekend I won't be able to, but it's one of the few tracks that I'll make the drive into whatever city is in the area and spend some time. So in my mind it feels like it is."