Geoff Smith, Roush Racing’s general manager says of the #6 Ford ride that is open for 2006 [Martin retiring] “For Mark’s ride, we have sponsorship ready and waiting for us to announce our driver, but we’re not quite ready on the driver side.” Smith says that Roush’s operation has been doing its homework, finding out who is under contract and who is reasonably available. “We don’t want to get entangled in other people’s contracts,” Smith said. “All we want to do is ask ‘Are you under contract or not, and if you’re not, do you have any interest in engaging in discussion? When you look at the row of drivers here, there are some drivers we don’t feel would fit into our program, and there are other drivers who would fit but who aren’t available. So we’re not quite sure where we sit. One of the reasons we hired Ricky Craven (driving now for Roush’s #99 truck operation) was to see if he could do it. One of the reasons we worked so hard to put Jon Wood (Eddie Wood’s son) in a [#47] Busch program this year was to watch him as well. Both of those guys are still on our radar screen for possible selection. And we think both of those would do fine.” The Wood option comes as Ricky Rudd, the Wood brothers’ current driver, debates with himself about racing another year or retiring at the end of this season. “We just didn’t want to settle on any one person until we were sure,” Smith said. “I’m more sure about what the garage territory looks like than Jack, but it’s Jack’s job to make the inquiries, not mine. We wouldn’t have any issue right now with filling Mark’s seat except that we had to move Carl [Edwards] up early (when Jeff Burton left last summer),” Smith said. “We’ve got Ricky and Jon and three other young candidates behind them under contract that we’re grooming, the most obvious being Todd Kluever (in the truck series).”(Winston Salem Journal)(5-26-2005)
