Expect an announcement from Hall of Fame Racing in the next seven to 10 days that it is switching to Toyota for 2008, sources said. HOF is a satellite outfit to Joe Gibbs Racing, which already has confirmed that it will move next year. The team will add a second full-time Spring Cup car in 2009 for 19-year-old phenom Blake Coleman. J.J. Yeley will drive for HOF next season, with Coleman doing as many as seven Cup races in 2008.
Team Red Bull boss Guenther Steiner said the team hasn’t decided whether it would add a third car for Scott Speed when the former Formula One driver, who will run the ARCA series next year, is ready to move to Cup. But if the two-car team were to expand, additional Camrys wouldn’t be sponsored by Red Bull, the energy drink company that also owns the operation. “First we need to see how Scott performs, but if we did a third car we would try to finance it somehow differently,” Steiner said. “To have three Red Bull cars doesn’t make sense. There is a plan, but at the moment in Cup, we want to perform with two cars at highest level and then proceed to three to four cars in the future.”
Elton Sawyer, Team Red Bull’s competition director, responded to questions about a possible switch from Toyotas to Chevrolets next season by saying his operation “is very content with our current manufacture. We have no plans to make any changes. It’s been a good partnership.” There has been intense speculation that the first-year team has been trying to make the change.
J.J. Yeley will replace Tony Raines at Hall of Fame Racing, allowing him to maintain his association with Joe Gibbs Racing. Yeley was scheduled to be introduced as the driver for the No. 96 car at a Tuesday news conference, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made. Yeley won’t be far from Gibbs’ reach at Hall of Fame Racing, a single-car team that has a strong alliance with JGR. The team was launched in 2003 by an ownership group that included Hall of Fame quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach and relied heavily on support from Joe Gibbs.
Continue reading Hall Of Fame Racing Replacing Raines With Yeley
Joe Gibbs Racing has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday and several published reports say the team will announce it has signed a deal to field Toyotas in the Nextel Cup series. The reports, citing unidentified sources, said JGR will end its 16-year relationship with General Motors and give Toyota its first big name team in Cup. Team officials refused comment on the report Thursday but did confirm the news conference and that drivers Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin are expected to be at the announcement.
Joe Gibbs Racing still hasn’t announced whether it will switch to Toyotas next year, but the buzz is that it will. Tony Stewart’s souvenir trailers were selling merchandise at 50% off regular price last week at the Brickyard, Stewart’s home track and a place where the Hoosier native is wildly popular.
A source at Richard Childress Racing said it has been approached by Hall of Fame Racing, a satellite Gibbs team, about buying engines from the newly merged RCR-Dale Earnhardt Inc., engine operation in 2008. Presumably, HOF is hedging its bets, if it ends up not being part of a Gibbs move to Toyota.
Joe Gibbs Racing president J.D. Gibbs said Sunday that a published report the team has a “done deal” to switch to Toyota in 2008 is “just not true.” Gibbs said the three-car team is in negotiations with General Motors about next year’s contract to remain with Chevrolet. Gibbs also said the team has talked with Tony Stewart about extending the driver’s contract.
The Winston-Salem Journal is reporting that Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota are “a done deal” for 2008, though team executives said otherwise. Apparently one hangup in the talks between the long-time Chevy operation and Toyota is a clause in Gibbs’ current GM [Chevy] contract which bars the team from negotiating with any other manufacturer until the contract is up. So sources said Gibbs has had to go through an agent in the talks. Gibbs has a major negotiating session scheduled with General Motors in the next two weeks, which should provide the “yea,” or “nay” on that side of the issue.
XM Radio reported that Dale Jarrett, Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota were re-evaluating Jarrett’s future with the team and could release him outright or sending him to a different Toyota team, either a current team or one that could switch to Toyota next season. Unconfirmed reports continue to circulate about Waltrip refunding between $300,000 and $400,000 per missed race to his sponsor, NAPA Auto Parts, and about the unhappiness of Jarrett’s sponsor, UPS.
Two-time Cup champ, Terry Labonte is rumored to be running the No. 55 NAPA Toyota at the road course races at Infineon Raceway and at Watkins Glen in August for Michael Waltrip Racing. Labonte would have the past champions provisional to use and since he won his last championship in 1996, he would vault ahead of No. 21-Bill Elliott who win his championship in 1988, guaranteeing the No. 55 will make both races.