| | THE FORGOTTEN ONES | Prospective drivers looking at unemployment in 2008 season | |
| | By Tom Bowles / SI.com With the announcement Monday that Jeremy Mayfield will replace Jeff Green at the helm of the No. 66 Haas CNC Racing Chevy, Mayfield took more than just a ride away. With one stroke of the pen, he took the proverbial door and slammed it shut on the 2007 Nextel Cup silly season.
After six months of rumors, denials and subsequent surprises at every turn, the game of NASCAR musical chairs has finally ground to a halt for '08, with several stock car racing veterans left standing -- in need of future work, but with nowhere left to mash the gas pedal. Indeed it's a lonely place to be a free agent now if you're a driver. With all of Nextel Cup's current rides filled for next season, the only options left are to roll the dice with a proposed new team that currently doesn't exist -- and may never come to be -- or simply bite the bullet and look for driving work away from the No. 1 racing series in the country.
Here's a look at what full-time drivers are still out in the cold and why, and whether they'll have a shot at landing anywhere at all in NASCAR next year:
Johnny Sauter
Current team: Haas CNC Racing, No. 70 Yellow Transportation Chevy
2007 stats: 31 starts, 0 wins, 1 top 5, 2 top 10s, 31st in driver points.
Resumé includes: Career-best 5th place finish at Richmond this September; three top-10 finishes in 63 career Cup starts; three-time Busch Series winner.
Knew he was gone when... Jeremy Mayfield was announced as the second Haas CNC Racing driver after weeks of speculation; team GM Joe Custer responded to Sauter's future Monday by claiming they were "resolving" his '08 driver contract with the team -- doublespeak for settling their differences and moving on.
Out of a job because... Haas CNC Racing got impatient. To be honest, Sauter's done a great job with this program. Of the eight new full-time teams that debuted on the Nextel Cup circuit in '07, the No. 70 car is the only one that has earned a qualifying exemption every week since the fifth race of the season. Taking the reins of a program that was hurriedly slapped together, Sauter's first full-time season in Cup has produced better results than half the rookies racing for Rookie Of The Year honors (Sauter was fired halfway through the '04 season with Richard Childress Racing, and wasn't eligible to run for the award again). But a future filled with upside wasn't enough for a Haas CNC program that's desperate to win now; Mayfield's two Chase appearances overshadow any accomplishments Sauter's had to date.
Best fit now? At 29, Sauter has a reputation for being a scrappy, hard-nosed kid who's aggressive and talented. That fits well with Robby Gordon, who's looking to start a new, second team in Nextel Cup, but does Gordon have time to get both the money and the equipment to come together?
Tony Raines
Current team: Hall of Fame Racing, No. 96 Team DLP Chevy
2007 stats: 30 starts, 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 1 top 10, 30th in driver points.
Resumé includes: 9th place finish at Talladega this season; career-best finish of 6th over 113 Cup starts; 4-time winner in the Craftsman Truck Series.
Knew he was gone when... Team ownership changed hands from Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach to baseball execs Jeff Moorad and Tom Garfinkel. A midseason slump of five finishes of 34th or worse this summer left Raines at risk, and with the future of the team in the balance, the owners chose a younger alternative in 31-year-old J.J. Yeley.
Out of a job because... Inconsistency reared its ugly head. At times, Raines has done well with this single car program, keeping it firmly entrenched in the top 35 throughout both its years of existence. But he was involved in half a dozen wrecks this season, apparently tearing up too much equipment for new ownership to justify keeping Raines, 43, another year. Leading 34 laps in two years didn't do him any favors, either, with an ownership group that's focused on winning and aggressiveness ... regardless of any handicaps they're up against.
Best fit now? Raines has actually run well in the Busch Series this year, with one top-10 finish in a handful of starts for Kevin Harvick. A quiet leader with plenty of experience, the veteran could easily slip into what'll become the Nationwide Series next year, aligning himself with a program in need of a driver to run part-time while helping develop its younger talent.
David Stremme
Current team: Chip Ganassi Racing, No. 40 Coors Light Dodge
2007 stats: 32 starts, 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 3 top 10s, 24th in driver points.
Resumé includes: Career-best 8th at Talladega this season; 33 top-10 finishes in 101 Busch Series starts.
Knew he was gone when... Ganassi informed him he was unable to find sponsorship to support him for '08 ... then promptly signed open wheel star Dario Franchitti to replace him.
Out of a job because... A strong start started losing steam as spring turned into summer. Through the first nine races, Stremme had two top-10 finishes and was 14th in Nextel Cup points; in the next nine, he had just one finish better than 22nd. It was that drastic downturn that likely caused Ganassi to keep the younger Reed Sorenson over Stremme once Franchitti came calling.
Best fit now? The knock on Stremme was that he moved up to Cup too fast, never winning a race in the Busch Series before taking the step to racing's top level. Stepping back to run full-time there once again could rebuild his reputation the way it did with fellow "young gun" Jason Leffler a few years back, getting him one more shot with another top tier team a few years down the road.
Jeff Green
Current team: None (released by Haas CNC Racing Monday)
2007 stats: 32 starts, 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 3 top 10s, 27th in driver points.
Resumé includes: Three sixth-place finishes this season, all in Car of Tomorrow events; 2 poles and 5 top 5 finishes in 265 career Nextel Cup starts; '00 Busch Series champion with 16 career wins in the series.
Knew he was gone when... Haas CNC stopped playing coy in the press and just flat out dumped him for Mayfield.
Out of a job because... His team never progressed fast enough for Haas CNC's liking. Picking up old Busch Series crew chief Harold Holly last October, the pairing started off strong but never developed the consistency that won them a title together at the beginning of the decade; Green wound up with more DNFs due to wrecks (four) then top-10 finishes (three) over a second full season in this car. If there's any silver lining, Green can at least take home the record for the longest driving tenure with a team known for its ADD; since debuting on the Cup circuit in '03, they've now had six different full-time drivers in the last five years.
Best fit now? At 45 years old, it's going to be tough for Green to settle elsewhere. You'd think the Busch Series would have a home for him, but Green's older brother David is a former champ himself, and he's struggled to get a full-time ride for over two seasons.
Kenny Wallace
Current team: None (released by Furniture Row Racing in September)
2007 stats: 15 starts, 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 0 top 10s, 43rd in driver points.
Resumé includes: Six top 5s and 27 top 10s over a 15-year journeyman Cup career; nine-time Busch Series winner; marketing machine due to television connections with SPEED and several other on-air entities.
Knew he was gone when... He failed to qualify for eight of 10 races in a stretch from June through August. No matter how bad a team you're with, that's not going to keep you in a job for long.
Out of a job because... Circumstances didn't go his way. For awhile, it looked like Wallace would land with Yates Racing, but when the team aligned itself with Roush it stayed internal and went with Travis Kvapil instead. It's also been a long time since Wallace has experienced consistent success; Furniture Row was underfunded and overmatched as a single car operation, but when it's been four years since your last top-10 finish in Cup, people aren't going to come knocking down your door looking for work.
Best fit now? As long as Wallace wants to race in one of the lesser series, he'll always have a home due to his marketability and on-air connections. He's currently negotiating with a few Busch Series teams, and hopes to have something to announce by the end of the year.
| | Posted October 26, 2007 , 1:30 pm EST
Last Updated October 26, 2007 , 1:33 pm EST | | | | | | |
