The state of Sprint Cup racing is such, in these trying economic times, that a 28-year-old whose best career finish and only top-10 is seventh, might have a profound effect on two organizations -- Yates Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- whose desire is to number seven race teams total in 2009.

Menard on the move

"I think a lot of what Doug Yates and Max Jones are doing over there is building for continued success. I'm excited to be a part of their future," Paul Menard said as he announced he will drive for Yates Racing in 2009.

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On Tuesday it was announced that Paul Menard would leave DEI, the organization for which he's made all but one of his 68 career Cup starts and about 90 percent of his total starts since graduating to NASCAR's national tours in 2003, to facilitate a third team in 2009 at Yates Racing.

For Yates, whose co-owner and general manager, Max Jones, said on Saturday at Kansas Speedway that his organization was already prepared to run its No. 28 and 38 Ford Fusions next season for drivers Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland, it marks the next step in a systematic process.

"When Doug and I started this, it was a two-car team, and our hopes and dreams were to eventually make it a three-car team and a four-car team -- that's the ultimate goal," Jones said. "Any time you start off, that's what you want to do, and to be healthy in this sport, I think you have to."

Even before Menard's deal was consummated, Jones was optimistic, saying "we're on target to run three cars if we can put the sponsorship together," though running four was beyond the team's immediate capability, he said.

While Jones said Yates Racing was in position to scramble and run two cars for Kvapil and Gilliland already, the sponsorship provided by Paul Menard's father, John Menard Jr., who was ranked 127th on the 2008 Forbes' Billionaires List with a net worth of $7.3 billion thanks to his business empire that includes the Midwest-based chain of Menards home improvement stores, secures its short-term future as a three-car operation.

Jones said the plusses of having another teammate to assist Kvapil and Gilliland, who are currently 24th and 27th in the Sprint Cup owner points, respectively, far out-weighed the cost.

"There's a lot of infrastructure in place at Yates that we've established, with the two cars," Jones said. "There's an incremental cost, obviously, to start a third team because you've got to build cars or buy cars and hire people and get pit carts and trucks and trailers and capital expenditures.

"But the data and the information and the third driver -- that's why you have multi-car teams and that information is valuable enough that I think it would bring our team up to the next level by having another teammate in there to help."

But as secure as Jones says Yates has become, DEI is currently faced with one of the most confounding and downright alarming facts of Sprint Cup racing late in the 2008 year.

Seven races from the end of the season, and with four race teams solidly entrenched in NASCAR's "magical" top 35 in the owner standings, the organization is looking at beginning the 2009 season in five months with only one of its four teams sponsored.

"The goal still is to run four teams out of this facility in 2009, and we do have assets that very few race teams in our sport have, which is four cars in the top 30," DEI's vice president of motorsports, John Story, said. "Those are tremendous assets to have on our side, and there's a tremendous amount of value to be placed on that.

"And the reason that we have four cars in the top 30 is that we have four really strong race teams. And our program is far better than a lot of people, quite frankly, are willing to give us credit for, and [the achievements] are due in large part to the people we have here.

"We're going to work hard to make sure that we [keep] those good people here and we're able to run four cars out of here next year." (Continued)