Ginn sells out: Got in over his head, then got ahead (cont'd)

So plans were made to have Frye, the CEO and minority owner of Ginn Racing, shut down the Busch Series team entirely and lay off scores of employees who mistakenly thought they were part of building something special over the course of what Ginn had initially described as a comprehensive five-year plan. Veteran driver Sterling Marlin, who deserved better after making race after race and at least hanging well inside the top 35 in driver points, was let go and the No. 13 team of veteran driver Joe Nemechek was thrown into limbo.

Now we know why.

Ginn had an escape plan at the ready. For how long, who knows? Maybe this was his plan all along -- to come in, fix up a race operation like it was an old rental property in need of some curb-appeal repair, and flip it for a profit like a real-estate developer does.

Merge ahead

The No. 15 car of Paul Menard will suddenly be thrust into the top 35 in owner points thanks to the DEI-Ginn Racing merger, while the No. 13 car of Joe Nemechek has raced its last.

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We did mention that Ginn was a real-estate developer, didn't we? Did we also mention that three decades ago, he nearly was run out of that business after making a series of what proved to be empty promises to a number of investors in Hilton Head, S.C.? Or that his company currently is the target of a class-action lawsuit filed in Michigan by plaintiffs who claim they were defrauded?

Beginning in this Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, Martin will share the No. 01 ride with newly signed Aric Almirola, whose recent signing with Ginn now makes sense because Almirola really was signing with DEI instead. No other cars that began the season with Ginn Racing will be in the Brickyard field.

The owner points from Marlin's No. 14 machine will be assumed by the No. 15 team of driver Paul Menard, guaranteeing Menard a spot in Sunday's race. It hardly seems fair to buy your way in when so many other decent teams have to scratch and claw to qualify for each event, but that's the way it's done sometimes in NASCAR.

Regan Smith, who thought he would race at the Cup level this weekend and the rest of the season for Ginn, instead finds himself preparing for a Truck Series race -- his once-rosy future as cloudy as the sky when a summer afternoon thunderstorm beckons. Nemechek's No. 13 team has been folded.

Other questions linger in the aftermath of the sudden merger. Ginn had an engine-lease deal with Hendrick Motorsports, but DEI already had earlier commenced on a new engine-building merger with RCR, leaving someone, for once probably Hendrick, holding a contract not worth the paper on which it was written. Ginn had a promising stable of developmental drivers it supposedly has been grooming in Jesus Hernandez, Kraig Kinser and Ricky Carmichael. What happens to them?

What happens to anyone who happened to buy into the Nextel Cup pipe dream Ginn sold all of NASCAR?

If you're lucky, all you have to do is write about it and move on. Others drawn closer like moths to a gentle flame that flickered and then destroyed them in an ill-planned fireball won't be so fortunate.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.