DOVER, Del. -- Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Robby Gordon Motorsports on Friday conjunctively issued a statement saying GEM's suit against RGM had been settled and a planned merger of the two organizations wouldn't proceed.

At Dover International Speedway, site of Sunday's Camping World RV 400 Sprint Cup Series event, both Mark McArdle, GEM vice president and managing director of competition, and Robby Gordon, owner/driver of RGM, declined to comment on the announcement.

The merger agreement came on the eve of Speedweeks 2008 at Daytona and implied it consisted of "technical, manufacturing and marketing support" for Gordon's single-car operation, which switched manufacturers from Ford to Dodge as part of the deal.

When news of the suit broke last month, it came out that there was more to the original deal. The Associated Press reported that Gordon agreed to the deal on Jan. 29 to sell his team at the end of this season for $23.5 million. The deal would have given Gordon a four-year driving contract with GEM and possibly a seat on the team's board of directors, while GEM would have acquired Gordon's shop and property in Charlotte, N.C.

At the time, the AP report quoted Gordon as saying he hadn't violated the agreement and he wanted it to continue to fruition.

Friday's statement said, in part "disagreements over the merger led to the recent filing of a lawsuit to have the court determine the parties' rights under the merger agreement. As part of the resolution, the lawsuit will be dismissed and the merger will not proceed.

"Management personnel for the two teams acknowledge that there were misunderstandings, but both sides acted in good faith throughout, and in the end it was circumstances beyond their control that caused the merger not to proceed."

Gordon would not be drawn into any discussion of his future plans for selling, merging or doing anything else with his NASCAR team, which also fields a part-time Nationwide Series car.

"I own my race team and they [GEM] own their race teams," Gordon said.

GEM had previously supplied engines for RGM, including this weekend and at next week's Sprint Cup test at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Gordon said his No. 7 Dodge would use a Penske Racing Dodge powerplant at Kansas Speedway next weekend and predicted a top-five qualifying effort.

On Friday at Dover GEM's three Dodge Chargers qualified 12th (Elliott Sadler), 17th (Patrick Carpentier) and 36th (Kasey Kahne). Gordon's car was 41st. Gordon said that in qualifying engine strength wasn't the problem for his car, which practiced 40th-fastest.

"Not great, but not disastrous," Gordon said of his qualifying lap. "When I hit the gas coming out of Turn 2, the car was just a little bit too free and I had to check up and that cost me a bunch of time. We've got our work cut out for us this weekend, but I think that we'll race just fine."

McArdle said his organization would continue to pursue sponsors and explore options, including a merger, which would enable the team to consist of four cars in 2009.

"Our desire is to be four teams, and right now we're exploring any options that will put us at four points position cars, and I want to keep stressing that," McArdle said. "Our desire is to not go to Daytona [for Speedweeks] out of the top 35, under any circumstances. It was a detriment to the 10 car's [Carpentier's] season to go there in that condition this year and the way the rainouts worked out earlier this season put us behind and ever since then it's just been mining coal to try and get back out of that hole."

Carpentier, a rookie of the year candidate, has been out of the guaranteed top 35 all season and has only failed to qualify four times.

McArdle said sponsorship continues to be the key to having four viable programs and GEM mostly would like to get enough backing to keep Carpentier in the fold.

"At the moment we don't have four fully funded [cars] and that's why we had to give Patrick the ability to go and talk with others," McArdle said. "However, it's still our desire to retain his services and our marketing folks and George Gillett and all the rest of our ownership group are working diligently to find us the funding to be able to make that fourth car dream come true in a tough economy."