RICHMOND, Va. -- Roush Fenway Racing was trying to figure out how -- or where -- to park its fifth Nextel Cup race team when NASCAR rules go into effect limiting all organizations to four teams.

Now that it appears Roush Fenway perhaps has found a home for that team via a working agreement with Robert Yates Racing, there were additional questions being asked in the garage area prior to Saturday night's Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway. For instance, is the emerging business model illustrated by the Yates-Roush Fenway agreement the way of the future in Cup racing? And also, is this an obvious attempt for Roush Fenway to circumvent the four-car limit?

Yates Racing

Robert Yates announced his retirement from NASCAR after the end of the season and will hand over control of his race team to his son, Doug.

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Both Roush Fenway president Geoff Smith and Robin Pemberton, who is NASCAR's vice president of competition, basically confirmed the former and denied the latter.

"Yates Racing is a solution for us with regard to that fifth car, but that's not the only solution, and we don't have to make a decision on that for another couple of years so I can't predict how exactly that will work out," Smith said. "We are not close to any of the prohibitions that NASCAR has laid out [in regards to the four-team limit]. Not even close. We're in another universe of where this is a real careful, safe deal."

Pemberton added: "It's racecars and parts and pieces. If you had the world's biggest building and you just had little 4-foot walls dividing it, and you had 30 different car numbers in there, that wouldn't be right. But when you've got facilities that are 10 miles apart, or five miles apart, set on their own, they're running their own businesses."

Roush Fenway currently is the only organization not at the four-car limit. Since it had five teams at the time NASCAR developed the rule, the team has been given until 2010 to eliminate one of its cars. Now it appears that it can move it to Yates without eliminating it, if it so ultimately choose.

The four-car limit per organization was imposed by NASCAR to prevent mega-teams from developing and monopolizing corners of the sport. But now the fear is that by forging certain alliances -- Joe Gibbs Racing has a similar one with Hall of Fame Racing, and Dale Earnhardt Inc. recently absorbed Ginn Racing -- the largest, best-funded teams may essentially be able to circumvent the limit at least in terms of exchanging vital information and at least some key components of cars.

Smith, in fact, spoke of eventually helping Yates Racing -- which currently runs two cars, the No. 38 driven by David Gilliland and the No. 88 that will be driven next year by Travis Kvapil -- develop into a four-car operation. If that happens, Roush Fenway eventually could have a total of eight cars contributing vast amounts of technological information to their operation. The two companies already have established a joint engine-building operation.

Smith said it's more about making sure that Ford, the manufacturer that backs both Roush Fenway and Yates Racing, is kept happy. And he said if Roush Fenway can help Yates stay in business, stay competitive and grow, that will invigorate the overall health of not just the Roush operation but the overall health of the sport as well.

"In the big picture, we're thinking it's important -- very important -- for our manufacturer to have enough mass of quality teams to sustain a competitive presence for a long period of time," Smith said. "And we believe that the best way to perpetuate that is to provide our know-how and our cars and engineering and all the things we're allowed to sell and provide to another team, [and that] we can get that best accomplished by helping Doug [Yates, who is taking over the Yates Racing operation as Robert retires].

"We think he is a really good candidate to build a very competitive four-car operation over time. So he was looking for help and was fully aware of their competitive comparisons between how they're presently operating and how we operate. So Jack [Roush] has been working with Doug on the engine company for three years now, gotten to know him very well, has a lot of respect for Doug, so off it went."

Pemberton said he does not see the move as in any way being an effort by Roush Fenway to circumvent the four-car limit rule.

"There would be concern if you had everything in one house, one facility," Pemberton said. "That gets to be a concern, and that's why we've gone to the four-car limit. There is business sense in buying cars and going and employing an engineering staff that has the resources to make your teams run better.

"You've got different teams that buy parts and pieces from all types of manufacturers. Multi-car teams have come and gone all through the entire industry here. This is just one more step where teams are buying parts and pieces. Hendrick [Motorsports] and all the big companies are selling engines, and are selling some sort of wares, whether it's chassis or whatever."

And NASCAR stays on top of it all, Pemberton pointed out.

"They always tell us what they're doing -- all the teams. ... Teams come to us and inform us of the path they're probably going to take," he said.

Smith said it's a little different than that. But he said that all teams are clear on the rules as to what can and can't be done between owners -- even, and perhaps especially -- between organizations that now have working agreements such as the one in place between Roush Fenway and Yates.

"They have a fleet of detectives that follow these transactions around the garage and they interview everybody, they look at things," Smith said of NASCAR. "We've been through that process. We've been examined. I've had my NASCAR Sigmoidoscopy. I feel perfectly comfortable by saying that all these things we're doing we've known are ordinary, routine."

Asked what exactly the rules are, as he understands them, Smith spelled out the parameters limiting Roush Fenway's involvement with Yates Racing.

"You can't own it, you can't profit share, you can't take prize money and you can't underwrite their loss to shore them up," Smith said. "Those are the core rules, and then they've told us about ancillary rules like you can't lease cars, you have to sell them cars. All those rules, we're good with all that."