Gibbs may not pursue Earnhardt, but Ginn will (cont'd)

"Mark was aware of how fast our cars were every week. Drivers know," Frye said. "[Earnhardt] is a smart guy. He knows what's in the garage. He knows who the people are that we have here. He knows whether he'd be comfortable here or not. He wants to compete for wins every week and run for a championship. Have we done that? No, we haven't. Do we think we can? Yes. Are we building to do that? Yes. Could he help us do that? Sure. But it might not be where he wants to come help, he wants to do it now. I don't know. We haven't talked. He may not want to talk to us. I don't know."

Bobby Ginn

Although Gibbs is under the impending NASCAR limit of four cars, team developmental driver Aric Almirola is widely viewed to be a top contender for that fourth seat if and when it becomes a reality. And J.D. Gibbs isn't keen on the idea of expanding to a fourth car for next season -- likely what it would take to accommodate Earnhardt unless the organization jettisons J.J. Yeley, whose contract expires after this year.

"We've added cars twice. Each time we spent a year and a half working on it, and they were still hard. That's a hard, hard deal setting up putting in a fourth car in six months' time. Real difficult. I wouldn't say we can't do it, I'm just saying we'd have to get it signed off from everyone in our shop," Gibbs said.

"All I have to say is, I'm watching it unfold like you guys [in the media] are. Sounds like if he and Kelley [Earnhardt Elledge, his manager], they're on the same page and they'll make a good decision. I think they'll have a ton of opportunities. If the time is right, we could talk to them about that. But right now, I think we're just going to focus on what we're focusing on, and let that fall where it may."

Richard Childress, owner of the team Earnhardt's late father competed for, said Thursday that he planned to sit down and talk with the driver eventually. Even Roger Penske, who owns a Dodge team, has intimated that he'd like to speak with Earnhardt. The driver himself said Friday that he planned to wait a few weeks before initiating serious discussions with other car owners.

The Ginn team would very much like to be involved in that conversation, but Frye is realistic. "We're obviously a dark horse in this whole thing," he said. The Ginn organization has won two Nextel Cup races, both when it was known as MB2 Motorsports. Again, the sales pitch is promise.

"There are a lot of good things to come with this company," Frye said. "We've put in a seven-post [rig], we've done a lot of things to upgrade our machine shop, and expanded by a couple of hundred people. I think we've shown that our intentions are to make this a top-rung organization every week. Obviously, to him, this is about performing, and I admire him for everything he's trying to do. That would be the thing we'd have to convince him of, mostly, that we can perform at the level he wants to perform."