2008 season review
The tale of two separate teams which came together at the end of the year wasn't always a pretty picture to watch in 2008. Both Chip Ganassi Racing and DEI suffered through a series of on-track and financial problems that eventually led to the two entities merging.
The post-Dale Earnhardt Jr. era for DEI started off on what looked like solid footing with a four-car stable of fully sponsored drivers including Martin Truex Jr., Paul Menard, Mark Martin and Aric Armirola splitting time in one ride and rookie Regan Smith.
But when sponsorship problems surfaced and the team was forced to scale back its operation, DEI had no other choice than to look for a life line in its merger with Ganassi.
Truex wasn't able to find Victory Lane as he did in 2007 and missed the Chase, finishing 15th-place in the standings. The former Nationwide Series champion did score three top fives and 11 top-10 finishes.
Martin, who announced mid-season he would bolt the team to run a full-time slate with Hendrick Motorsports in 2009, was again impressive in his limited schedule. In only 24 starts, the veteran posted four top-five finishes and wound up 28th in the standings.
His protégé, Armirola, made 12 starts in the No. 8 entry and did show some promise on the short tracks topped by an eighth-place finish at Bristol.
Menard finished 26th in the final standings and did win a pole at Daytona in July. But he announced his move to Yates Racing, taking his family's lucrative home improvement store sponsorship dollars with him, for 2009.
Smith won the Rookie of the Year award in a limited schedule of starts and came close to winning his first career Sprint Cup race in a controversial finish at Talladega when he was ruled to have passed winner Tony Stewart under the yellow out-of-bounds line on the final lap.
Over on the Ganassi side, 2007 ROY Juan Pablo Montoya couldn't duplicate his freshman year effort and missed both Victory Lane and the Chase in his sophomore season. Montoya notched a pair of top fives on his way to a 25th-place finish in the standings.
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| Martin Truex Jr. has a sponsor for '09 and that's encouraging. (Getty Images) |
But maybe the most painful part of Ganassi's disappointing season came with the decision to shut down its No. 40 entry due to lack of sponsorship and ultimately ending the stock-car career of Dario Franchitti. The former IRL champion and Indy 500 winner, who broke his foot in a severe Nationwide Series crash at Talladega in April, was left without a ride when Ganassi was forced to park his ride in late summer.
2009 season preview
The combined forces of the new EGR entity for 2009 will be a four-car team with Truex Jr. and Armirola coming from the DEI side to team with Montoya and a driver to be named from Ganassi. The merger leaves reigning ROY Smith without a ride.
The team will campaign Chevrolets and all signs point to Bobby Labonte as driver of the No. 41 to fill out the roster.
While the merger keeps both organizations alive, the streamlined effort still faces funding problems with only Truex and the 41 entry fully sponsored. Montoya has funding in place for half the season and the No. 8 ride, which lost the U.S. Army backing to the new Stewart-Haas team, has none as of this in writing.
Details of the team's plans have been few with only Ganassi and DEI president Teresa Earnhardt issuing statements.
"In this ultra-competitive era of NASCAR, it is necessary to build and sustain the strongest team possible, and our combining with the people and equipment at Dale Earnhardt Inc., will help create a strong four-car program for years to come," Ganassi said. "This is a win-win for both organization, as well as all of our partners."
"Having a partner like Chip, who is heavily involved on the competition side of the business, is an ideal situation for DEI," added Earnhardt. "He has a long history of managing championship teams in the IndyCar and Rolex Grand-Am Series, and I share his passion and goals of winning races, and ultimately championships in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. I think this is a case where we are stronger together than we are apart."
Moving from Dodge to Chevy should help Ganassi's drivers be more competitive than they were last year but overall, there are still many unanswered questions on how management, team personnel and resources will shake out in this newly-melded operation.
