As Nascar heads into the dog days of summer, the weather isn't the only thing about to heat up. The hot seat that several drivers and crew chiefs are on is beginning to get warmer by the race and add to the pressure their teams already feel to perform at the sports highest level.
Roush-Fenway Racing is the team in the biggest quandary. All of their driver's and sponsor's contracts are up this season and the only combo they have managed to lock down was Greg Biffle's No. 16 car with 3M sponsorship. Carl Edwards, David Ragan and Matt Kenseth, as well as their respective sponsors (Aflac, UPS and Crown Royal) have yet to sign on the dotted line and commit to racing the team's Fords in 2012. The biggest player in this deal is definitely Edwards. He leads the points, has already visited victory lane twice and has eleven top tens in fifteen starts this season. It would be hard to imagine him leaving his cushy seat in the Aflac No. 99 right?
Not if Jack Roush can't afford his price tag. With Edwards' new-found stardom comes a hefty asking price. If "The Cat in the Hat" can't put together the cash, Joe Gibbs Racing is set to pounce on the superstar wheelman. It has also been rumored that JGR has been courting
Edwards for a while now and that he may move into a second car for the Toyota organization (Tell me Edwards going to a Toyota team wouldn't stick in Roush's craw). It was also rumored that current Roush sponsor UPS, one of the richest and most prestigious sponsors in the garage, would accompany Edwards should he move to Gibbs Racing.
That's another key factor in how Roush-Fenway will go about preparing for 2012. David Ragan has shown several signs of promise, but has been relatively unimpressive so far this season. This could play into UPS's decision to stick around and if they follow Edwards to JGR, that's millions in sponsorship dollars that RFR will forfeit to the Totoya juggernaut. If this did prove to be true, then fans could expect Edwards' current sponsor, Aflac, to move over to Ragan's No. 6 team.
The other question is if Edwards did move to Gibbs, would it really be in a fourth car? Joey Logano has done very little to impress in his three years in cup and Home Depot has to be a little miffed that the driver who replaced two time champion Tony Stewart in that ride has not lived up to the hype. However, JGR has said that both the home improvement giant and Logano will return in 2012. But they also said that about Stewart in 2008. Smoke then left to form his own team in 2009, despite still having a year on his contract at Gibbs.
On the crew chief side of things, it was also reported that Greg Zippadelli would jump ship from the struggling No. 20 car and reunite with his longtime driver and friend Tony Stewart at Stewart-Haas Racing. This would allow the current head wrench on the No.14, Darian Grubb to take over as SHR's director of competition, a position recently vacated by Bobby Hucthins. Zippy and Stewart were very successful in their decade long run at Gibbs Racing, winning more that thirty races and two titles in 2002 and 2005.
So we will have to wait and see what happens. The merry-go-round of rumors has been spinning out of control in recent weeks and it will be very interesting to see where all the drivers and sponsors involved will land once it stops at season's end.
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