OFFICIAL: Kenseth Leaving Roush After 2012, Replaced By Stenhouse Jr

Matt Kenseth will leave his longtime No. 17 car after the 2012 season

After more than a decade, 22 wins, two Daytona 500's and a Cup Series title, Matt Kenseth will move on from Roush-Fenway Racing and his familiar No. 17 Ford at the concluion of the 2012 season. This means that Ricky Stenhouse, Jr, who won the 2011 Nationwide title for Roush-Fenway and is in the hunt for this years crown, will replace him for the 2013 season.

"Of course I'd like to thank Matt Kenseth for his many years of loyal service," team co-owner Jack Roush said in a team press release. "Matt has been an integral part of this organization for well over a decade, and we are extremely appreciative of his accomplishments and contributions to the team, and will always consider him a part of the Roush-Fenway family."

Kenseth won this year's Daytona 500

Kenseth, the current Sprint Cup points leader, took to Twitter to thank his team and assure his fans that their focus will not change.

 "I am very thankful to Jack Roush for the opportunities he's given me over the past 14 years. Together we have enjoyed a lot of sucess," he tweeted. "And as a team, we are commited as ever to the remainder of the 2012 season and chasing a third Sprint Cup title for Jack and RFR." When the term "lame duck" was mentioned, Kenseth stated "Darien and Tony proved to us last year that there is no such thing as a "lame duck" team or season. We will continue to go to work and race hard."

So why would a champion driver like Matt Kenseth leave the only team he has ever known?

Well the biggest reason was undoubtedly money. The Ford powwerhouse just negotiated a five year extention with Greg Biffle and his sponsor 3M last season. They also ponied up some serious money to retain the services of driver Carl Edwards, which also meant that many of the team's other sponsors, such as UPS and Best Buy, migrated to the No. 99 team to help offet the tremendous cost.

Roush has funded most of Kenseth's 2012 season out of his pocket. They only have Best Buy on board for nine races, Zest Soap and Fifth Third Bank for four races each and Valvoline for a few races. The rest of the year, Kenseth will run a Ford EcoBoost scheme in favor of a blank car. So with no new sponsors on the horizon and after footing the bill for a few races last season as well, it has become evident that Roush simply cannot afford to keep Kenseth around anymore. A youngster like Stenhouse will drive for much cheaper, which will keep sponsorship costs down and Roush will save millions.

Whether the car stays numbered 17 or is rebadged with the 6 Stenhouse campaigns in the Nationwide Series remains to be see. The No. 6 has been Roush's flaghip Cup Series car since Mark Martin made his name driving it in the 80's an 90's

Kenseth has said he has a team for the 2013 season, but which team will that be?



Ricky Stenhouse, Jr will get his chance
in Cup in 2013

All signs point to Kenseth joining Joe Gibbs Racing next season, but it is uncertain if he will drive a fourth car or if he will take over the No. 20 Home Depot Camry driven by Joey Logano. Logano has been with JGR since 2007 and has won in everything he's ever driven for them. But once he moved to Cup, his sucess suddenly stopped. He has two wins in three years driving the No. 20 car and he has finished no better than 16th in points and his contract is up at season's end.

Meanwhile, Home Deopt has seen their biggest rival, Lowes, win race after race and five consecutive Cup Series titles from 2006 to 2010. The home improvement giant won two titles and 33 races with Tony Stewart, but have had almost nothing to celebrate with Logano at the helm. So with a driver of Kenseth's caliber on the market, it would be suprising if they didn't jump at the chance to sign him up. And why would Kenseth move from a ride with RFR with limited funding to a fourth car at JGR with none while Logano gets his fifth chance in the No. 20 car?

Should Kenseth move into the famous, orange No. 20 car, Gibbs will either place Logano in a fourth Cup car or give him a full-time Nationwide ride to run for a championship.

It had also been rumored that Kensteh would move to Penske Racing, since they will be moving from Dodge to Ford next year. That is, until Ford Racing Director Jamie Allison released a statement saying "All of us at Ford are certainly dissappointed to hear that Matt will be leaving, and he will certainly be missed by us and the Ford Racing fans," all but ending any talk of that move.

This move is a win-win for everyone involved. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr gets his big break in the Sprint Cup Series, Matt Kenseth moves to a championship caliber ride and Joey Logano gets a chance to run for his first Nationwide Series title. All we can do is speculate until Kenseth's new deal is announced, but his moving to JGR makes the most sense for everyone involved.

Dale Jr Breaks Winless Drought. Same Bat-Date, Same Bat-Racetrack

The Junior we remember from his Budweiser days poses with his trophy
 in victory lane

For Dale Earnhardt, Jr, the last four years have been shrouded with uncertainty about when his next win would come. It was the only thing the media asked the Hendrick Motorsports driver. It was all his fans wondered about. He had been close over the last year and a half, but close seemed to be the best that he could muster.

But Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, on the four year anniversary of his last win (also at Michigan), driving a black Chevrolet on Fathers Day weekend, that question was answered once and for all when Junior pulled into victory lane for the second time at the two-mile oval nestled in the Irish Hills. But this time: He. Was. Batman.


Holy Tumbler Batman! Dale Jr got some seat time in the new Batmobile
at MIS

Driving a car promoting the new Batman film, 'The Dark Knight Rises", Junior seemed to change from his quite, mild-mannered Bruce Wayne-esque persona to a veritable superhero behind the wheel of his No. 88 machine.
The track had just been repaved and after reaching speeds of close to 220 mph during a test on Thursday and practice on Friday, Goodyear decided to make a change to a harder left side tire. Of course, this threw most all of the teams for a loop and Dale Jr was among the first to criticize the move.
But once the green flag dropped, Junior quickly worked his way forward from his 17th place starting spot. He took the lead from Marcos Ambrose on lap 69 and never looked back. in all, Junior led five times for a total of 95 laps. Unlike his last win, in which he stretched his fuel mileage farther than anyone else, Dale Jr dominated the field and made a very convincing case that a few more wins may be just around the corner.

And as for the championship? This is the first time Dale Jr has ever had Chase bonus points and he now sits second in the standings, just three markers behind leader Matt Kenseth. They say you need to lose a title before you win one. Well Junior has finished third in points in 2003 and fifth in 2004 and 2006. He has been close and with the amazing consistency he's showing so far this year, who's to say he can't bring home his first Cup Series title at season's end?

Junior celebrates his first win of 2012

The race was also made extra fun for Junior Nation because Kyle Busch, who this week would have been the Joker to Dale Jr's Batman, experienced his third blow engine in as many weeks, making Junior's victory that much sweeter.

Next weekend, the Cup Series will be racing on the road course in Sonoma, California. It is unlikely that Junior will win back-to-back races with the tight turns and hills of Sears Point. But who knows? Stranger things have happened and, for now, all is right with the world. Dale Earnhardt, Jr has finally won again and he is in the hunt for the Chase and, maybe the title.

Elliott Sadler and Kurt Busch Two Sides of the Same Coin

After Elliott Sadler was wrecked out of the lead in the Darlington Nationwide race one month ago, he was met in the garage by members of the ESPN broadcast crew. The Virginia native could have blown a fuse, or blown off the media completely. But instead, he  chose to talk to the cameras and what the fans saw was one of the classiest interviews, maybe in the recent history of the sport.

Sadler's winning run was ended on the frontstrech by Logano, who would go on to win the race, after an ill-advised bump draft from the Gibbs Racing driver. But Sadler talked about not being able to change what happened, picking up and going to Charlotte the next week and his team simply giving the rest of the season their all. No bashing Logano and, more importantly, no cussing out the media members who came for his side of the incident.

But while Sadler set this spectacular example just a few weeks before, fans were treated to the other side of the coin just three weeks later in Dover.

After the Nationwide race at the Monster Mile on Saturday, Kurt Busch was involved in a heated confrontation with Sporting News writer and veteran Nascar reporter, Bob Pockrass after finishing fourth.

Pockrass, a longtime motorsports writer who is well respected in his field and the garage area alike, simply asked Busch if his being on probation (from an incident in the Darlington Cup race with Ryan Newman's team) affected the way he raced Justin Allgaier after the two had a run-in on track. Busch's response was "It (the probation) refrains me from not beating the sh*t out of you right now because you ask me stupid questions."

 After taking a day to deliberate, Nascar suspended Busch from all on-track activity in Pocono the next week, meaning that David Reutimann would move from his familiar No. 10 car to race Busch's No. 51 at the "Tricky Triangle" and Busch will meet with his team owner, James Finch, Tuesday to discuss his future with the team.

This may have been a bit of a drastic move by the sanctioning body, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

This was Busch's fourth high-profile altercation with the media since last September in Richmond, where he had to be physically restrained on pit road and tore up the transcript of an earlier interview with another reporter. There was also that viral YouTube video where the driver cussed out ESPN pit reporter, Dr. Jerry Punch, and his camera crew in Homestead last November.

There is no doubt that Kurt Busch is one of the best in the sport. He wouldn't have won the 2004 championship if he wasn't. But this has nothing to do with Busch's driving record. Nascar is a team sport and it's high time he got the message that you can't get respect unless you give it first. If he continues to treat people like dirt, then this is what is going to keep happening to him.

If Busch didn't want to answer Pockrass' question, he should have just declined to answer it and walked away. It's just that simple. But instead, he threatened Pockrass and made a scene. Busch has always been a volatile personality in the garage and has little respect for the sport, it's drivers, it's teams and it's fans. But, for some reason, he expects to get the same respect he refuses to show others shown to him. That isn' how it works Kurt.

This may have been a harsh move by Nascar, but it might just show Busch that he needs this sport a lot more than it needs him. In Pocono, Reutimann will slip into Busch's ride and the race will go on without him, whether he wants to believe it or not.

Busch may just get one last shot with Phoenix Racing. But, with an underfunded team who can't afford to wreck anymore cars and will have to sell their hot-headed driver to a sponsor, it may not be worth the risk involved. It was rumored Busch was a blip on Joe Gibbs Racing's radar for next season, but now it appears that blip has vanished. Unless he learns some manners quickly, watching races from the couch may just become a regular occurrence for this former champion.

Reutimann to Replace Busch in Pocono

David Reutimann will get the chance to be competitive for the first time
in 2012

Phoenix Racing owner James Finch announced on Sirius/XM Nascar Radio that David Reutimann will move from the Tommy Baldwin Racing No. 10 car to fill his vacant No. 51 car this weekend at Pocono while their current driver, Kurt Busch, serves his one-week suspension for verbally assaulting Sporting News reporter Bob Pockrass last Saturday in Dover.

Finch also said that he would meet with Busch over "the next week and have a come-to-Jesus meeting."

This is Busch's fourth run-in with a media member since Richmond last September and his first since a profanity-laden tirade cost him his last job at Penske Racing.

When Busch signed with Phoenix Racing, Finch said of the deal, "He can't quit and I can't fire him."

Now it appears the owner has changed his tune.

"Quit wrecking cars (and) be nice to people," Finch will tell Busch during their meeting. "That's not hard to do." The hot-headed driver has wrecked 13 cars in the 14 events so far this year, which has taken a severe toll on a single car team with only a few employees and no regular sponsorship. Finch made it abundantly clear that, if Busch is to stay in his car, changes must be made. Fast.

"We've got to get Kurt in the right frame of mind," he said. "He needs to either get his mind right or he's going to be working somewhere else. If we stay together it will be on a race-by-race basis."

Since Reutimann will drive the No. 51 car this weekend, Dave Blaney will move into his No. 10 car. Tony Raines will also move into Blaney's No. 36 machine. All three of these rides are locked into Sunday's field.

Kurt Busch Suspended by Nascar for Run-In with Reporter, James Finch Looking for Replacement

Nascar has suspended driver Kurt Busch from Sprint Cup competition this weekend at Pocono Raceway. The sanctioning body's decision came after Busch got into an argument with Sporting News reporter Bob Pockrass after finishing fourth in Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Dover International Speedway. He had been on probation for doing a buurnout through Ryan Newman's pit stall at Darlington and then getting into an altercation with Newman's No. 39 crew after the event.

Busch got into a scuffle with Justin Allgaier at the start of the race and the two met on pit road for a discussion when the event ended.

An ESPN reporter later talked to the hot-headed Busch about the exchange. Busch said Allgaier "drove like a you-know-what all day. He tried to door us and tried to do stupid things out on the track. (But) I'm on probation, so I can't even pick my nose the right way."

"There are clowns that want to play and we'll play," said Busch. "I've got no problem with it. But then there's fans that will get on blog sites and Twitter tonight and just start a bunch of riff-raff. (All) it was, was the initial start of the race. Race your car kid, race your car. That's all there is to it."

 Speed camera's then caught Busch's response to Pockrass when the reporter asked him if his probation had restrained him from racing Allgaier harder than he normally would have. "It refrains me from not beating the s**t out of you right now because you ask me stupid questions," snapped Busch. "But since I'm on probation, I suppose that that's improper to say, as well."

"If you would talk about racing things, we could talk about racing things Bob," to which Pockrass responded, "It is racing."

Busch snapped back, "It is not racing. You're in this just to start stuff. That's all you're out here for."

Nascar took Busch aside Sunday morning after the drivers meeting and expressed their displeasure with his actions Saturday and they have taken the necessary steps for teaching him a lesson.

When this season started, Busch had said he was going to try and "put the fun back in racing."

He made a handshake agreement with James Finch at the start of the year to wheel the No. 51 car after a tumultuous 2011 season.

This was a year that saw Busch disrespect his then-owner, Roger Penske, over the radio, calling him "dude," on several occasions. He also had to be restrained on pit road during an altercation with Nascar.com writer Joe Menzer at Richmond, Later, in the Richmond media center, Busch tore up a transcript of an earlier interview offered by Associated Press reported Jenna Fryer. Most notably, he directed a profanity-laden tirade at ESPN pit reporter Jerry Punch following a transmission failure in the season finale at Homestead.

Finch has said he will meet with Busch in the coming days to discuss the status of their handshake deal. When asked about Busch by EPSN, he did not sound confident their deal would continue to work.

"If he's going to kill himself, I'm not going to be in the airplane with him," Finch said. "If that's what he's planning on doing, I am going to get out." The former driver-turned-owner told ESPN in December that if Busch had embarrassed him the way he did Penske last season, "he would have gotten his ass beat on pit road. He needs to simmer down a while." He mentioned drivers David Reutimann and Brian Vickers as possible replacements for Pocono and, possibly beyond. "There are a helluva lot of (drivers) out there."

This is the best thing for Kurt Busch. The media members he has verbally assaulted over the last two seasons are all well respected, veteran writers, not bloggers living in their mom's basement. And "respect" is the key word in all this. Busch wants respect from the fans, drivers and media around him, but he doesn't give that same respect back. He may be a talented driver, but this is not like football or baseball where talent is all that matters. An owner is also trying to sell him to a sponsor and a company is not going to pay a cash-strapped team like Finch's for Busch's attitude. He needs to learn, once and for all, you can't treat people like crap and expect them to like you.

Now that attitude has finally landed Busch on the couch for a week instead of in his usual seat behind the wheel. And by the sound of things, it may have also cost him another ride. And with his reputation, who knows if he'll get another chance to race again.