Sunday, April 27, 2008
Tony Stewart’s possible plans to leave Gibbs have turned the NASCAR garage into a wild bazaar
J. D. Gibbs (left) and fellow team owner Rick Hendrick
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
By Mike Mulhern
TALLADEGA, Ala.
The snowball that Tony Stewart started rolling the other day has become monstrously complicated.
Whether or not Stewart will be back at the wheel of the Joe and J. D. Gibbs’ Toyotas in 2009 is up in the air, Stewart himself has said. However the Gibbs Sunday said Stewart’s interviews on the subject of his future over the past few days have surprised them, but they insist they can work through the situation and keep Stewart happy and at their wheel, at least through the end of Stewart’s contract, which runs through the 2009 season.
Nevertheless, Stewart clearly appears on track to leave the Gibbs, either at the end of this season or at the end of 2009, and would become an owner-driver of a Chevrolet team, probably the Gene Haas-Joe Custer team currently running as a satellite operation of Hendrick Motorsports.
Tony Stewart has created a firestorm in the NASCAR garage...and he’s loving every minute of it
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
What that has done is shake up many other teams in the NASCAR garage, and Stewart himself is suddenly fielding other offers too:
—Carl Edwards, whose contract with Ford’s Jack Roush is up at the end of 2008, is reported to be in Rick Hendrick’s sights, possibly to replace Casey Mears on Hendrick’s fourth Chevy team, even though Mears’ current contract runs through the end of 2009.
—Casey Mears could be headed to Roger Penske’s Dodge team.
—Ryan Newman, whose contract with Penske is up at the end of this year, could be leaving Penske’s team after eight seasons to become the driver for Richard Childress’ new fourth Chevy team.
—The Dale Earnhardt Inc. operation is expected to lose Martin Truex Jr. at the end of the season when his contract is up. Sponsor Bass Pro Shops wants to follow Truex to whatever new team he signs with; but that would likely take Truex out of any possible Childress deal because of Childress’ current contracts with sponsor Realtree. Truex might be moving to Penske’s with that Bass sponsorship.
—Tony Stewart – if the Gibbs give their okay to his departure at the end of the season – has apparently not only started legal negotiations with the Haas-Custer Chevy operation but is also entertaining a major, mult-million-dollar deal from Dodge’s Chip Ganassi, who is saying privately he – and presumably with help from Chrysler boss Bob Nardelli—would beat any rival offers.
—UPS is considering a move from Michael Waltrip Racing to another team, and reportedly has six other teams as potential targets – and one of those is the proposed new Stewart-Haas-Hendrick team.
—Home Depot, the long-time sponsor for the Gibbs and Stewart, apparently plans to leave NASCAR completely at the end of 2009, regardless of what Stewart and the Gibbs do. It would be cost-cutting move the giant home improvements retailer, which reportedly would like to the Gibbs to find new additional sponsorship for as many as half the Cup events next season. Bass Pro Shops might be a potential fill-in.
—The Gibbs may not want to let Stewart out of the final year (2009) of his current contract, and Toyota executives may be pushing the Gibbs to hold Stewart’s feet to the fire on that contract.
—Greg Zipadelli, Stewart’s crew chief of some 10 years, may or may not be part of any Stewart move. But whatever Zipadelli does decide to do, his crew – a veteran group and very close-knit – will almost certainly stick with Zipadelli. And obviously if the Gibbs’ ride does open up, that would become a major driver battle too, unless Joey Logano, the long-promising, soon-to-be-18, racer is given the quick promotion to Cup. Logano won’t even be able to run his first Nationwide race until he turns 18 in May.
—The tangled Stewart-Hendrick-Chevrolet has suddenly made life very difficult for car owner Jack Roush and Geoff Smith, who handles driver contracts and sponsorships for Roush. Both Edwards, one of the hottest drivers on the NASCAR tour, and teammate Greg Biffle are currently negotiating new contracts with Smith. Biffle is expected to stay with Roush, but Edwards’ future is a bit more iffy.
—And there is also the question of what sponsorship Jeff Burton – who went into Sunday’s 500 as the NASCAR tour leader—might have in 2009 is up in the air, with AT&T to leave at the end of this season.
Smith naturally is trying to sort all this out himself:
“You’ve got Jeff Burton’s program sponsorship for sale.
“You’ve got the Gibbs and how they’re going to deal with Tony Stewart.
“You’ve got Rick Hendrick and how he’s going to deal with Casey Mears.
“You’ve got Roger Penske talking about adding a fourth team and how sponsorship would fit into that.
“You’ve got UPS looking at six other teams, of which there are three viable candidates. (Roush-with-Edwards is one option.)
“You’ve got Martin Truex at DEI in play.
“And if Tony Stewart does get released by the Gibbs, then he’s got to have a sponsor for his new team.
“If our guys end up signing up again, then other owners have to scramble somewhere else.
“This is a seven-dimensional chess game…..and it’s tormenting all of us.
“But I think the whole situation with our drivers and sponsors will be over by the end of May. It won’t go on all summer.”
Geoff Smith, head of Roush Racing, with Mark Martin (right)
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Smith and Roush just went through a complicated driver-swap themselves a few years ago, after Kurt Busch announced in mid-2005 that he had made a deal to leave Roush at the end of his then-current contract, though that contract still had another 18 months to go. Busch at the time of that announcement then asked Roush and Smith to let him out of that contract at the end of 2005. Roush and Smith then went after Jamie McMurray, who still had a year left on his contract with Chip Ganassi. To get Roush and Smith to okay Busch’s departure, Penske reportedly helped pay Ganassi a significant amount of money to get McMurray released for Roush. That complicated scenario took from August till November to get worked out.
J. D. Gibbs
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
J. D. Gibbs concedes Stewart surprised him: “A lot came out this past week, some of it new to us, some of it not.
“We got our guys together at the shop and said ‘Here’s where we are. We are going to run as hard as we can the next two years with Tony, and hopefully somewhere in there he feels like this is where he wants to retire’.
“He’s got a lot of options. Most drivers do every time a contract negotiation comes up.
“All we can focus on is what we can do—and that’s winning races and championships. Hopefully that will be encouragement to him.
“We’ve had no conversation of leaving before the contract is up. There’s too much in there from Home Depot’s standpoint, from our team’s standpoint, too much we’ve already built and invested in.
“It was not so much surprising he was looking at different options, but that we feel we are in on the back part of some of the conversations he’s had elsewhere.
“‘We need to take a break: Let us spend some time and try to come back to you with some things that would be exciting for you down the road.’
“He has a lot of options. We just want to be in the mix.
J. D. Gibbs, with driver Kyle Busch
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
“But the reality is that is two years removed from now. Our deal is through next year, and that’s what we’re looking at. There has been no talk about ending that any earlier.
“We’ve had some great drivers in our history: Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte really built this team, and Tony is a huge asset. We would love for him to be a part of our future…until he feels it’s time to go do something else.
“If someone were saying ‘Hey, leave next year and come over here,’ we would have a problem. And that’s the same thing in any sport.”
If Stewart does want to become a team owner, as it appears, “there’s a lot of stuff we could do, as far as engines, cars, bodies,” Gibbs says. “We could do a lot of things to help him in the future.”
However the biggest piece of the puzzle appears to be the General Motors/Chevrolet angle, that Stewart wants to get back with Chevrolet.
Gibbs, though, says Stewart was key in the Gibbs’ decision to leave Chevrolet for Toyota: “One of the first guys we went to in this whole deal about ‘Do we change or not?’ was Tony.
“Tony said if it was something we thought we needed to do, ‘Then let’s do it.’
“GM was a great partner for many years. They do help his Sprint Car stuff; Toyota has offered to do the same thing.
“From a GM standpoint, I know he likes a lot of the guys there.
“At the end of the day his loyalty is with Joe Gibbs Racing more than a manufacturer. That’s not just us, that’s Greg Zipadelli and all the crew guys.
“Tony is a loyal guy.
“At the same time, not knowing exactly what’s in front of him, that’s some pretty interesting stuff—If I’m in his shoes, you want to take a chance and look at some of that.
“Obviously you’re two years out. Last year with Dale Earnhardt Jr. (leaving DEI for Hendrick), that was crazy. Our goal here is we don’t want it to get crazy for two years.”
Of the time frame for getting a clear decision, Gibbs says “The sooner, the better.
“Obviously this has put a little more pressure on.
“The sooner we could get this put to bed, the better.
“We’ve had a lot of things we’ve worked on together that were hard issues. And we supported him. There’s a lot of stuff too that he’s done that has really supported us.
“Loyalty plays a factor…but at the end of the day you’ve got to make sure this is really what your heart wants to do. That is our hope is more than a loyalty thing: ‘Hey, this is really what I want to do, and where I feel belong.”
Joe Gibbs talking to Denny Hamlin
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Joe Gibbs himself says “In a sport like this sometimes things get thrown at you you don’t expect. You’ve just got to work your way through it, and we’ll do the best we can. Tony and us have always worked good before.”
Gibbs himself insists the Stewart debate isn’t about money: “Tony doesn’t have to worry about money. Tony’s got enough money to last the rest of his life.
“It’s been 10 great years. I remember the very first time I met Tony, standing on the tarmac in Columbus. It’s been 10 great years, and we’re hoping that somewhere in this we wind up staying together.
“Hopefully you guys will help us calm it down. That’s why we wanted to say everything. We’ve got 34 wins together, it’s been a great ride, and hopefully it will continue in the future.
“Tony said ‘Hey, everything is good here at our place.’
“We think we’ve got a great future for him. We’re on a high, and he said that. That’s where we are right now.
“We’ve got a huge responsibility, and we want to do what is right. We’ll just have to work through this process.”
Joe Gibbs
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK
David Stremme gets the call to fill in for injured Dario Franchitti
(Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Dario Franchitti’s broken left ankle, injured when he was T-boned in Saturday’s Nationwide race, will keep him off the NASCAR Cup tour for a while, and the Indy-car star will need surgery before he can get back in one of Chip Ganassi’s Dodges.
The impact was so severe that it drove the left-side rollbars nearly a foot deeper into the car, and Franchitti’s feet became entangled.
David Stremme filled in for Franchitti in Sunday’s Talladega 500; Stremme drove last season for Ganassi, but was dropped at the end of the season for lack of sponsorship. Stremme is currently under contract with Roger Penske, as a test Cup driver, and Penske is not expected to let Stremme run more races for Ganassi. Sterling Marlin, who once drove for Ganassi, could fill in for Franchitti this week at Richmond.
Well-known Indy-car world surgeon Dr. Terry Trammell will evaluate Franchitti’s injury this week.
Dario Franchitti’s broken ankle will keep him sidelined for a while
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
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