SONOMA, Calif. — Rick Hendrick will meet with Brad Keselowski this coming week to discuss their 2010 options. Under consideration is placing the young driver with a team affiliated with Hendrick Motorsports.
Among the possibilities: a third entry at Stewart-Haas Racing, a full-time ride with James Finch’s team, or staying put at JR Motorsports but moving that team to the Sprint Cup Series. Keselowski currently drives the No. 88 in the Nationwide Series for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who could move the team up to NASCAR’s premier series.
“That’s something that Dale and Kelley are looking at,” Hendrick said before Sunday’s race at Infineon Raceway. “That’s a possibility.”
After Keselowski drove Finch’s car to his first Cup Series victory with a surprise April win at Talladega, he agreed to a period of exclusive negotiations with Hendrick about a long-term contract. Keselowski wants to run in the Cup Series next year, but NASCAR’s four-car limit means Hendrick doesn’t have an open seat for 2010.
“We’re looking at different options with some of our external situations with other teams, and I told Brad that I want him to have the best opportunity,” Hendrick said. “If we can’t give it to him, then I want him to have the best. He wants to do something that is somehow associated with our company and we’re working on it and hopefully in the next few weeks we’ll have something sorted out.
“He’ll be running Cup. Whether he’ll be running them all or whether he’ll be running 75 percent of them or what, I don’t know.”
Keselowski is running a limited schedule this season for both Hendrick and Finch, and could do it again next year. Hendrick believes NASCAR would allow him to field a fifth car next year for Keselowski in seven races.
JGR EXPANSION: Joe Gibbs Racing will take the summer to decide if the organization can expand to four teams in 2010.
“We can still plug in a fourth team,” team president J.D. Gibbs said. “We’re in no hurry. If we have to wait a year, that’s fine. You have got to have the right driver, the right core group and the right sponsor. But if that happened, we could do it pretty quick.
“I wouldn’t cross it off for next year, but at the same time we’re not going to force it.”
JGR has been deliberate in its previous expansions and nixed adding a fourth car last year after Tony Stewart left the race team. For now, a bigger priority is figuring out how to get its three current teams running consistently.
Gibbs praised rookie Joey Logano for weathering a tough start to the season, then improving steadily over the last six weeks. But a team meeting held earlier this week with Kyle Busch, the crew chiefs and engineers was called to help the organization understand why its cars aren’t performing at the same pace they were last season.
Although Busch has three Cup wins, he’s ninth in the Sprint Cup Series standings and has just a 53-point cushion over 13th-place David Reutimann. Denny Hamlin is 10th in the standings, 11 points behind Busch.
“We’ve just got to do a better job finishing,” Gibbs said. “If we finished where we were running in a lot of the races and capitalize on some of the wins we could have gotten, we would be in pretty good shape.
“We’re not in horrible shape. The other thing is we have to consistently make gains in the garage to keep up with the other guys.”
BUSINESS IS GOOD: Hendrick Motorsports wasn’t spared from General Motors’ funding cuts earlier this week, but team owner Rick Hendrick said he was prepared for the reductions.
GM cut all funding to its Nationwide and Truck Series teams, and it reduced its support of Sprint Cup Series teams as the manufacturer restructures under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Both Richard Childress Racing and Stewart-Haas Racing have acknowledged funding was reduced to its programs in meetings with GM earlier this week.
Hendrick had the same meeting, but had already made changes to his four-car organization in preparation for the cuts.
“I’ve been kind of, for a year or better, thinking that this could happen,” Hendrick said. “We’ve been trying to address things and do things a little bit differently. We’ve been trying to cover our bases for about a year. Everybody is having to make adjustments, but it’s not going to change the way we race or how we show up on the race track.
“I’ve been telling our guys the only way I could see GM surviving long-term was to go into bankruptcy. I’ve been saying that for over a year, so we’ve been kind of expecting it.”
Hendrick is also in a unique position of potentially replacing the money through his leasing programs with other race teams. SHR buys cars and leases engines from Hendrick, and Stewart has said he’s considering adding a third team next season — which would give Hendrick even more business.
Another potential partner is Red Bull Racing, which is considering leaving Toyota for Chevrolet next season. If the team does switch, it would likely lease motors from Hendrick. Red Bull general manager Jay Frye had a similar arrangement when he ran now-defunct Ginn Racing.
“I’m going to stop racing and build cars and sell motors,” joked Hendrick. “You don’t turn down any business these days. Probably what I’ll see, we’ll convert some of the other programs if it comes to pass.
“We’ve worked with Jay Frye for so many years, and Tony and them, that’s a seamless deal for us.”
PIT STOPS: Spotted at the Sonoma road course: Tom Cruise, his wife, Katie Holmes, and three children at Jeff Gordon’s car during pre-race festivities. … Jeff Burton finished 36th to fall out of Chase contention, from 12th in the standings to 15th. Richard Petty Motorsports had three cars in the top 10, including AJ Allmendinger, who finished seventh for his best showing since the season-opening Daytona 500. … Marcos Ambrose equaled his career-best finish of third at Watkins Glen, another road course, last season.
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