What Has Happened to NASCAR?

As NASCAR fans prepare for the 2009 season many wonder what has happened. The drivers and car owners on the entry list for the first race this season is far different than it was just a few months ago as the 2008 season ended.

Over the short off season the current economic crises has had a major affect on the race teams. First were reports that Petty Enterprises (PE) may fold its operations and the famed #43 would no longer be. PE released their driver, Bobby Labonte, to pursue other avenues.

Then word came that Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI) was having sponsorship problems. At the same time the driver of the #15 car, Paul Menard, announced he was leaving DEI and would drive a new entry #98 for Yates Racing. Menards, the home improvement stored owned by his father would be the sponsor. Yates Racing moved the owner points from their #38 to the #98. This left David Gilliland (the normal driver of the #38) with a car but without a sponsor or owner points.

Chip Ganassi had closed operations of his #40 car at mid-season last year. Reed Sorenson left the #41 to drive for Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Now, Ganassi only had the #41 and #42 cars. Texaco terminated their sponsorship of the #42 car. Ganassi moved the Target sponsor to the #42 car. This left the #41 without a driver or sponsor.

While this was going on Petty Enterprises was rumored to merge with Ganassi. Then everyone was surprised that Chip Ganassi was merging his NASCAR operation with DEI to form Earnhardt Ganassi Racing (EGR). The stable of cars would be the #1 (Truex), #8 (Amirola), #41 (unnamed) and #42 (Montoya) Rumors were hot and heavy that Bobby Labonte would drive the #41.

Richard Petty, who had sold the majority interest in Petty Enterprises in June 2008, announced Petty Enterprises was in discussion with Gillett Evernham Motorsports to merge their operation. The process took several weeks and ended with PE and GEM becoming Richard Petty Motorsports (RPM). The cars and drivers would be #9 (Kayne), #19 (Sadler) #43 (Sorenson). Later, RPM announced that A.J. Allmendinger would drive the former #10 car to be renumbered #44 with the owner points from the #10.

Bobby Labonte had been rumored to drive the EGR #41. But, Bobby Labonte announced that he would be driving the #96 Hall of Fame Racing car. The car would be sponsored by Ask.com and become part of the Yates Racing shop. Yates Racing would move their owner points from the #28 car to the #96 car. Driver of the #28, Travis Kvapil, will have no owner points for the 2009 season and is only planned to run the first 5 races of the year. There is no sponsor as of yet.

Latest announcement is that John Andretti will drive the #34 for EGR with no sponsor to date.

Other driver changes are as follows:
#00 David Reutimann
#07 Casey Mears
#08 Boris Said
#09 Brad Keselowski
#12 David Stremme
#14 Tony Stewart
#20 Joey Lagano
#23 Mike Skinner
#27 Kirk Shelmerdine
#28 Travis Kvapil
#33 Clint Bowyer
#34 John Andretti
#39 Ryan Newman
#41 Jeremy Mayfield
#47 Marcos Ambrose
#60 James Hilton
#64 Geoff Bodine
#66 Terry Labonte
#82 Scott Speed
#87 Joe Nemechek