Tad Geschickter knows all too well how this game is played.

As co-owner of JTG Daugherty Racing, Geschickter has seen a lot of drivers come and go. A driver leaves for this reason or that, and another comes on board. It's a way of life throughout the NASCAR garage, and certainly not just with Geschickter's operation. This time around, however, it probably stung a little bit when Marcos Ambrose decided to seek other opportunities.

“

Marcos is over here to run for championships or go home. He can win championships at home and be with his family.

”

-- TAD GESCHICKTER

The Australian Ambrose began his NASCAR career behind the wheel of a Geschickter-owned truck in 2006, and he moved the following season to the Nationwide Series. Ambrose won Nationwide races at Watkins Glen in 2008 and 2009, and appeared ready for the Cup tour. Again, Geschickter, wife Jodi and new business partner Brad Daugherty made the full-time jump to Cup with Ambrose beginning with the 2009 season.

While there have been flashes of brilliance -- a late-race miscue at Sonoma last month cost the team an almost sure victory -- results at the Cup level have been for the most part just so-so. Has it been the team? Was it Ambrose? Whatever the case might have been, the driver announced earlier this week that he would be moving on. Despite the investment he and the JTG Daugherty Racing organization have in Ambrose, Geschickter says he understands Ambrose's decision.

"We've been together for five years," Geschickter said. "Marcos is over here to run for championships or go home. He can win championships at home and be with his family. Certainly, as our season kind of started to stall out a little bit this year, we didn't progress our results from last year.

"He has no benchmark. He's only driven my cars and trucks. I certainly understood his [thinking], 'I want to see if I can catch on with a mega-team. If I'm as good as I am right now with a mega-team, I just need to go home.' There's no assurance whether our stalled results are because of my equipment or Marcos. Change is never pleasant, but I understood his thinking on it, that's for sure."

For more than a decade, one constant has been the owner's relationship with The Clorox Company. The Kingsford brand first joined the Geschickters in 1998, and it's now one of the longest joint ventures in the sport. The company's title product came on board in 2004. As the team and Ambrose moved to the Cup tour, The Clorox Company upped its commitment that much more.

The team is also backed by Kleenex and Lance Snacks, which have also been involved in the sport at various levels for well over a decade. When Ambrose opted out, Geschickter and his corporate partners were left to figure out Plan B. The alternative turned out to be none other than 2000 Cup champion Bobby Labonte.

"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."