Stan Herzog of Herzog Motorsports announced Sunday that primary sponsor ALLTEL has decided to leave his #92 BGN team and driver Jimmie Johnson after the 2000 season. The company was expected to renew its sponsorship this past weekend with a plan to expand into Winston Cup in 2001. The deal fell through on Friday when ALLTEL called Herzog and informed the team of its intentions to switch sponsorship to Team Penske in 2001(St Joseph News-Press(MO)). I hear Ryan Newman will drive the Penske BGN car. He has tested Cup and ARCA cars recently and run in a few ARCA races for Penske UPDATE: hmm…hearing now that this will be another Penske Cup team, with Newman driving(7-5-2000) UPDATE 2: Penske Motorsports is planning on expanding its operation and will field a BGN entry next season with Ryan Newman, an open-wheel racing star, ThatsRacin.com has learned. Newman’s team will run a full schedule next season in the BGN with Alltel as sponsor and plans are to move to the Winston Cup series in 2002. John Erickson, general manager of Penske Racing South, said Friday he would not comment on the BGN plans, but did say Newman will drive in four more Automobile Racing Club of America series events this season for the team – Pocono, Talladega, Charlotte and Atlanta. Newman ran in the ARCA race at Michigan for Penske(That’s Racin’)(7-8-2000) UPDATE 3 Newmans Plans: Ryan Newman is planning on adding some BGN races to his schedule this season. Newman is on track to be Rusty Wallaces and Jeremy Mayfields Winston Cup teammate in 2002. Next season, Newman is planning to run five ARCA, five Cup and 14 BGN races. He moves to Cup with Penske in 2002 with Alltel as a sponsor(Times-Dispatch)(9-3-2000)
