Notes: Wallace continues searching for sponsorship

Three weeks before the end of the 2009 season, Nationwide Series team owner Rusty Wallace's view of the future was far from crystal clear. But he had no question about what he needed to do. He confirmed it at Phoenix.

"We're 100 percent done with [son] Stephen's car, with Five-Hour Energy, but we've only got about 40 percent of the budget we need for Brendan's [Gaughan]," Wallace said of his Nos. 66 and 62 entries. "I'm getting a little nervous about it. I got all the employees together and told them we were 50-50 on a lot of [sponsorship opportunities] so if you've got to go to Phoenix and Homestead and look for a job, go for it, because I don't have [the budget] at the moment.

Wallace

"I'm not a quitter, I'm going to stay digging and make it happen. I plan on having [the money] but I don't have it at the moment. I didn't want to get to the last race and give them all a big surprise."

Gaughan's family is heavily involved in the Las Vegas hotel and casino industry, but Wallace said it's not a solution to his budget woes; nor was running a partial season for Gaughan.

"The deal with Brendan is he's all-in and he's not going to do anything partial," Wallace said. "He wants to do everything. The casino business is funding part of it and the stipulation is they'll fund it, but they want to run [all the races]. Michael Gaughan [Brendan's father] is a great friend, he's done so much for us and he wants to go racing. He can put so much money into it out of the casinos but the problem is we've got to get more to be able to pull the trigger and say we're going to go for it.

"It's my intention to have Brendan in that car. I like the way he drives and we've all learned so much and I know we'll continue to get better."

Prior to Homestead, Wallace announced he would run Toyota Camrys in 2010. At Homestead he said the Toyota alliance was more a technical windfall than financial, with no effect on the budget shortage for Gaughan's team.

"We've been doing all of this on our own, we have no [technical] deals with any Cup teams," Wallace said. "With what Toyota and TRD [Toyota Racing Development] bring with technical and engineering support, all their teams work together and this was something we had to do."

Steve Wallace and Gaughan ended the season seventh and ninth in the Nationwide standings, but it's close to decision time for Wallace; though his older son Greg, a team vice president, said Tuesday no layoffs were imminent.

"I hate it, but we've come right down to the wire," Rusty Wallace said at Homestead. "The best case, if we have to lay some of the guys off, is that we would be able to hire them back if we get the sponsorship we need. But I know I'm not going to go into [wife] Patti and my life savings to run a race car."

Toyota shopping some of its best

When Toyota recently closed its Formula 1 program, speculation that it would unleash a stream of the Japanese automakers' best engineering and mechanical minds toward its NASCAR arm was quickly dispelled. The economy's rendered that impossible, according to TRD president and general manager Lee White.

"We're head count frozen and don't have the ability to hire anyone right now," White said. "We are currently in the last stage of hiring a new chief engineer for our chassis deal in North Carolina, and it took me about six months to get approval. And that was one position, so it's unlikely TRD would take advantage of [the available personnel] even though we'd like to."

At Phoenix, White said TRD was shopping its displaced open-wheel personnel to any team in the garage area that might need their expertise.

"That's Toyota's way of operating," White said. "These are good people, and we want them to have jobs, even if there's no place for them right now with Toyota."

White said Toyota's 2010 team lineup was solid but further expansion wasn't impossible. Front Row Motorsports and TRG Motorsports were among the teams considering manufacturer switches, though TRG crew chief Slugger Labbe on Monday said the team planned to purchase several cars from Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, including the chassis outgoing EGR driver Martin Truex Jr. drove to ninth at Homestead.

"At this point our lineup is pretty much set, but there's a couple things that are still under discussion," White said. "But I'm not at liberty to go into those until certain things happen. There could be one or two more cars, but I'm not going to go into that because there's other things going on."

Kligerman's future potentially slim, but solid

Connecticut teenager Parker Kligerman found out just how cruel NASCAR racing can be when he attempted to make his second Nationwide Series start at Homestead.

Kligerman, who won the pole at Kansas in October in his first series attempt, was a DNQ at Homestead when he ricocheted his No. 22 Penske Racing Dodge off the wall on his first qualifying lap. But his team made a deal to put Kligerman in the car qualified by Todd Bodine. Kligerman started at the back and raced to 25th, two laps behind race winner and Nationwide champion Kyle Busch.

It only emphasized the promise Penske Racing president Tim Cindric and his group see in Kligerman, who won nine ARCA Series races this season. He finished high school in the process and raced during his initial freshman semester at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

"Right now we're trying to figure out how to start it simple," Cindric said, calling to mind the 'ABC [ARCA, Busch and Cup]' schedule executed by Penske graduate Ryan Newman. "We'd like to run [Kligerman] in a limited schedule of at least 10 Nationwide races next year, [including] the new car races. In addition to that we may be in a position to run him in a few Truck races."

Cindric said Penske newcomer Brad Keselowski's own Truck program, which Keselowski has styled as a driver development vehicle, could be used for those. Keselowski will also need a substitute driver for several events while he competes in full 2010 Sprint Cup and Nationwide schedules.

"There may be opportunities for [Kligerman] in the non-companion races, where somebody's got to practice and qualify the 22 car for Brad," Cindric said. "So our idea for next year is to run him in as many quality races as possible. We want to make sure he's in something that's competitive."

Kligerman's reaction was part of what continues to endear the 19-year-old to the Penske group even if Cindric wasn't sure his birthday is Aug. 8, 1990.

"His overall demeanor is what impresses me the most," Cindric said. "He's very calculating and very cool for an 18-year-old. Nothing really gets him too bent out of shape and from a talent perspective, aside from qualifying [Saturday] and one spin at a test we had, the guy's car is never out of shape.

"He knows how to take care of his equipment, he knows how to be a leader toward the guys and these are all things that some of these guys never figure out. So he's got all those traits and qualities at 18, so we think there's a lot of potential there."

Hamlin to have knee surgery

Denny Hamlin figured he was too young to be partially crippled any longer, so the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has scheduled arthroscopic surgery on his right knee for the week after the Sprint Cup banquet on Dec. 4.

"I'm going to do it on Wednesday, as soon as we get back," Hamlin said. "I can't cancel on those guys. I've already canceled on them once. We'll try to do it and then it will be a couple weeks recovery before I can really get back to doing what I usually do. As long as I can walk around in a few days I should be fine.

"There's tears in there and they've got to just scope it out. I've just had problems with it. When I get out of the car it really is stiff and the joints really hurt a bunch. It's something that needs to be done for the long run."

Short Takes

Homestead's garage is always a cornucopia of international racing personalities, with the 2009 finale including former endurance sports car champions Derek Bell and VW Motorsport worldwide communications representative Hans-Joachim Stuck, current Formula 1 drivers Sebastien Vettel and Heikki Kovalainen, NASCAR hopeful and sports car champion Mika Salo and open-wheel "super sub" Roberto Moreno.