Gibbs may not pursue Earnhardt, but Ginn will

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- He's good friends with two of the team's drivers, Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart. He's a big fan of the Washington Redskins, the football squad coached by the team owner. He'll bring a big-money sponsor to an organization that's won three championships and has room to start up a fourth team.

Earnhardt Jr. leaving DEI at end of season

In a news conference at his JR Motorsports race shop on Thursday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced he will leave DEI at the end of this season.

• Complete story, click here
• DEI shifts focus to future
• Junior wants time to ponder
• Childress to give Junior room
• Gibbs may not push, Ginn will
• Effect on licensing industry

• Drivers offer thoughts
• Running commentary
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• DEI, Budweiser reactions
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But Joe Gibbs Racing may not want Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"Hey, if the opportunity is there, we'd love to sit down and talk to him," team president J.D. Gibbs said Saturday at Darlington Raceway. "But right now, I think he's just focused on his deal, and we're just focused on our deal."

Earnhardt, NASCAR's most popular driver, announced Thursday that he would leave his Dale Earnhardt Inc. team when his contract expires at the end of this season, becoming as high-profile a free agent as the sport has ever seen. His stated desires to continue to drive Chevrolets and compete for a contending team leave Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing and the Gibbs organization as the apparent top three contenders.

But Earnhardt's car sponsor, Budweiser, could prevent a marriage with Gibbs from happening. The Gibbs organization, whose owner Joe Gibbs is an ardent Christian, is clearly reticent about bringing an alcohol sponsor on board. Even if Budweiser doesn't follow Earnhardt to his new team, the driver has a personal services agreement with the beer company through next year.

"I'm not sure if that would fit for us," J.D. Gibbs said, just before rain struck at Darlington to delay the start of the Dodge Avenger 500. "Even though we really appreciate what they're doing and they're a great group, that would be a hard deal for us to do."

There are no such concerns at Ginn Racing, the three-car organization owned by Florida real estate developer Bobby Ginn, which plans to make an underdog play for Earnhardt. Jay Frye, the team's general manager and minority owner, is a St. Louis native who once worked at Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser's parent company, and has close friends within the Busch family.

The team also has Mark Martin, whose near-miss in the Daytona 500 and repeated top-10 runs in Ginn's flagship No. 01 car gives the operation needed credibility when pitted against other Chevrolet squads with multiple championships. Their sales pitch: look at the potential, and what you could help build.

"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."