HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The company his father founded essentially will cease to exist, at least in the form that his father intended.

But Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that he has learned to move on. So the son of the late Dale Earnhardt -- who founded the Dale Earnhardt Inc. racing organization in 1996 with the hope that Dale Jr. might someday run it -- admitted to mixed feelings about the news that DEI is merging with Chip Ganassi Racing.

DEI, Ganassi merge

Teresa Earnhardt and Chip Ganassi will combine their slumping race teams next season, an effort to stabilize their organizations in a tough economic time.

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• Head2Head: Good move?

"I just ain't got much to say about it anymore," said Earnhardt, who left DEI at the end of last season to drive for Hendrick Motorsports after his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt, rejected his bid to buy a majority share of the company. "I did, but I'm so far past it and a little bit farther removed from it. I don't have the initial knee-jerk reaction about it no more when those kinds of things happen to 'em. I'm more on the sidelines with everyone else now, just viewing from a distance. I still have emotional connection with it where I want it to work and I want it to do good. But a lot has changed. It's difficult to feel any real close connection to it anymore."

That isn't true, of course, for everyone in the garage. Driver Regan Smith, for instance, enters this Sunday's Sprint Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway poised to capture Raybestos Rookie of the Year honors. But the driver of the No. 01 Chevrolet currently fielded by DEI has no idea what lies ahead for him in the immediate future.

As speculation continued to swirl about the new combined operation running Chevrolets next season (Ganassi currently runs Dodges), DEI officials weren't offering any further information on that, or on who the yet-to-be-named driver of the organization's fourth car might be. The release announcing the deal named Juan Montoya, Martin Truex and Aric Almirola as drivers, but did not name a pilot for the merged team's No. 41 car.

That leaves Regan Smith, the DEI driver who nearly won the Sprint Cup event at Talladega earlier this season, in limbo. Smith's No. 01 car is without a sponsor and will be folded into the new four-car team, while the driver effectively is a free agent.

"My name wasn't on the merger release, but I'm definitely talking to a lot of people," he said. "I wouldn't say I'm any closer by any means, but I would say there's a lot of interest, and I'd say everyone knows the teams available in the garage, and every single one of them has interest in me. We've just got to see how some financial stuff plays out here in a few weeks, and go from there."

One of those options, he said, is the fourth ride at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. But team co-owner Chip Ganassi nearly struck a deal earlier this season with former Red Bull driver A.J. Allmendinger, who is enjoying a strong finish to this season in a Gillett Evernham car and also appears to be a strong candidate for the No. 41 next season

“

When my Daddy died, all that changed. Everything about everything changed. If he was here, he'd be saying [what he thought]. But he's not and everybody's gotta go do their thing and make their own way.

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DALE EARNHARDT JR.

"Communication through this whole thing has been not quite as good as I would have hoped for," Smith said. "I didn't honestly know much until Wednesday when everybody else did, other than hearsay and what certain people could give me for information that I could get from them at the time. I think ultimately that decision is going to come down to Chip and who Chip wants in the car. I don't know that for a fact. But we'll just keep plugging away and trying to get a good run this weekend, and see where it takes me."

Earnhardt said that while he no longer is close to the situation at DEI, he wishes his old employer the best and also hopes that the Ganassi organization benefits. Both DEI and Chip Ganassi Racing have struggled mightily this season -- both with their on-track performances and in securing solid sponsorship dollars for next season.

"I think it's good for both teams to try to do this," Earnhardt said. "I think things are going to be kind of tough for everybody next year, so I think it gives those guys a good opportunity to get through next season financially."

Earnhardt said that he believes DEI drivers Truex and Almirola will benefit from being able to work with Ganassi driver Montoya, and vice versa.

"I'm happy for Martin and Aric and I think it'll be good for Juan to work with those guys," Earnhardt said. "Juan's really going to enjoy working with Martin. It should be great for Ganassi and give both programs a boost."

It is apparent that Chip Ganassi will head up the new combined operation, which both Smith and Earnhardt alluded to in separate interviews. Earnhardt said he believes that move will help the combined operation.

"There is some great personnel working there," Earnhardt said of Ganassi's current operation. "Steve Hmiel [a former longtime DEI employee who left in October of 2007 to become manager of competition at Ganassi] will be reunited with a bunch of old employees and buddies. Ganassi himself is a racer; they need a racer around over top of things to really make firm decisions.

"It'll be interesting to see how that works. I think it will be seamless, and it should be productive for everybody. I think Juan will enjoy working with Martin and Aric and those teams. I think they'll be able to work off each other. It'll be exciting to see new data coming in from the DEI guys, and the DEI guys will be excited to be able to see what Ganassi has been doing over the last several years as far as setups and what direction they've went. When you accumulate that information together, take the bits and pieces that are good from each side and mold it together, you might just improve all of it."

Asked how he thought his father would feel about DEI being folded into the Ganassi program, Earnhardt grimaced and replied: "Your guess is as good as mine. I really don't know."

But then, after a pause, he added: "He would have had better luck securing sponsorships than they've had in the current state they're in. When my Daddy died, all that changed. Everything about everything changed. If he was here, he'd be saying [what he thought]. But he's not and everybody's gotta go do their thing and make their own way. Everybody's got to take care of themselves, you know. He ain't here to take care of everybody, so you've got to do your own thing and take care of yourself.

"I want them to succeed, I want them to be happy, I want it to work. But I can't exhaust any of my emotion over it because of what I've got going on with myself. I've got to get my own thing going. I've got things I could be doing better."