With mergers over the last couple of season and teams scaling back for economic reasons or to comply with the NASCAR team limit rule, there may actually be more drivers with Sprint Cup racing experience looking for rides than actual rides available for 2010.
Among the drivers looking for rides for 2010 are:
Bobby Labonte and Reed Sorenson will both seem to be losing their 2009 rides due to the Richard Petty Motorsports/Yates Racing merger. With the two organizations coming together to form one next season, they must scale back to a combined four cars. The newly formed team plans to hold on to existin RPM drivers Elliott Sadler, Kasey Kahne, and AJ Allmendinger -- leaving Sorenson withouth a ride for next year.
Sorenson does have a part-time Nationwide Series deal with Braun Racing for next season, but no word on a Sprint Cup opportunity for 2010.
Paul Menard, a current Yates driver, will also be part of the newly formed team. However, his teammate Labonte is the odd man out.
Jamie McMurray is forced to seek a seat elsewhere, as 2009 was the last season Roush Fenway Racing was given to field five cars before having to scale back to the four-car cap NASCAR implemented a few years ago.
David Stremme's current ride, the No. 12 car at Penske Racing isn't going away, but Stremme won't be in it next year. After one year back in the Sprint Cup Series after a one year stint back in the Nationwide Series, Stremme will lose is ride to Brad Keselowski in 2010.
Casey Mears hasn't lost his ride in the No. 07 at Richard Childress Racing as of now, but it is in jeapordy. Childress doesn't yet have a sponsor for the No. 07 for next season, and according to team owner Richard Childress, if one isn't found by the close of this season, he may have to go back to being a three-car operation for 2010.
The only ride that looks to be up for grabs is the No. 1 car at Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing. Martin Truex Jr., the current driver of the No. 1 car, announced awhile back that he would be leaving the organization to pilot a car for Michaeal Waltrip racing, as team owner Michael Waltrip scales back to a part-time schedule.
There's no official word yet on which of these drivers, or another driver from perhaps the Nationwide Series, for that matter, will get the only ride that seems to be available, but rumors have McMurray as the leading candidate.
One coincidence of note -- three of the four drivers mentioned above who are looking for rides, or four of the five if you already count Mears as losing his ride, are former Ganassi Racing drivers. Of the drivers looking or possibly looking for teams for 2010, Labonte is the only one who hasn't driven a car for Chip Ganassi. The rest of them got their first Sprint Cup Series rides from Ganassi.
Whether it's McMurray or someone else, it looks as if someone will return to where it all started.
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