Roush Fenway Racing will have to decrease its number of Nextel Cup teams from five to four by the start of the 2010 season, team president Geoff Smith said Saturday. NASCAR announced in 2005 that it would limit organizations to four fulltime Cup teams and that it would work with Roush to get down from four to five. Originally, the agreement was that once Roush lost a sponsor and driver at the same time, it would have to get down to four. “That [original discussion] triggered a loop that made the shrinkage date unpredictable, so it was [changed to] very simply, when the 2010 season starts, you’ll have four,” Smith said. “We have to be at four at the start of 2010, regardless of what happens to us in the interim, if we lose a driver, lose a sponsor.” Smith indicated that his contracts are solid through the 2009 season. He also said in the perfect world, Roush would sell one of the teams. “We’ve got three more years to sell one of our teams off,” Smith said. “Hopefully, we can retain some business with that sale.”(SceneDaily.com)(3-24-2007) UPDATE: Changes are on the way at Roush Fenway Racing, which is losing one primary sponsor after this season and has been ordered by NASCAR to drop one of its five Nextel Cup teams by 2010. Ameriquest, the mortgage company that became the primary sponsor of Greg Biffle’s #16 car this season, has asked Roush Fenway to sell off the final two years of its contract, which expires in 2009. The lender’s struggling parent company recently announced a second round of layoffs, and Ameriquest last week pulled out of a 30-year deal as rights holder to the name of the Texas Rangers’ ballpark. “It’s very clear that they want to reduce their contract exposure to us,” Roush Fenway president Geoff Smith said Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “If we weren’t able to do that, then you get into, OK, here’s your car, what are we going to do with it? You’ve got this lame duck environment going on, which is not helpful to anybody. So in practical terms, we can assume that we’ll have another sponsor for next season.” Smith doesn’t anticipate any difficulties in finding a new sponsor, especially given that Roush Fenway has nearly an entire season to search. Roush Fenway also has until the 2010 season to comply with NASCAR’s maximum of four cars per organization, announced by the sanctioning body in 2005. The car cap was put in place after all five Roush cars qualified for the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship. “There’s no mistaking our understanding of what we have to do,” Smith said. “Regardless of what goes on within our programs, we have to go to four [cars] in 2010.”(NASCAR.com)(3-25-2007)
