Geschickter relying on Labonte to move forward (cont'd)

"Any time you have a driver signed to a long-term agreement and he asks to get out early, obviously, the sponsors need to be notified," Geschickter said. "They have their marketing plans and promotional materials all tied to the length of his agreement. They've got warehouses full of stuff with Marcos Ambrose's picture on it. So when Marcos first came to me and said he'd prefer to move on, my first call was to my sponsors.

"Certainly, their discussion with me was, 'What's the next plan? We don't want to let him out [of his contract] without a plan.' So Bobby and I started talking early in the process. We needed to have our next plan in place to make sure our corporate partners were comfortable with everything. Obviously, Bobby's a fine replacement. We'll miss Marcos, but we're really excited about Bobby coming on board."

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In terms of experience, Labonte is Ambrose's polar opposite. With 21 Cup victories to his credit, the native Texan was the most logical choice to replace the departing driver.

"Marcos is a champion in his own right. You don't want to take a step backward ... Bobby's a champion," Geschickter continued. "He played at Joe Gibbs Racing. He's played at a high level, and we're a young race team. We certainly expect his years of experience at a high level to translate into helping us grow our team and get to the next level as well.

"He's a great race-car driver. He's great on the mile-and-a-half to two-mile tracks, which is the majority of what we do. We just felt like he was the guy who could help us keep progressing and not lose a step."

So confident is Geschickter that Labonte was the right choice, he's willing to go out on a limb and make a prediction for next year.

"I think Bobby's the type of guy that can give us a real run at The Chase," Geschickter said. "He'll be consistent. He'll be hungry. He'll be able to give us extra insight into what we need to do next. We just expect to keep progressing and improving on our results."

Geschickter's current sponsors will all return in 2011, although maybe five races remain to be sold. A technical alliance with Michael Waltrip Racing will also remain in place.

"Our sponsors are happy and coming back," Geschickter concluded. "We've got the funding in place for next year, but we certainly still have some paint that we could offer up to a company that wants to partner with us. We'll look to make sure that we have plenty of logos on the car at every race next year. ... It helps getting this announcement done early, so people know exactly what we're about and what we're offering next year."