Regan Smith doesn’t expect to be part of the new Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing team but said Wednesday he continues to have promising discussions with other teams. Smith, talking at the New York City bar Foley’s as part of his winning NASCAR’s top Sprint Cup rookie award, said he has little dialogue with the new leadership at Earnhardt-Ganassi in the weeks since he completed his first Sprint Cup season at Dale Earnhardt Inc. DEI and Chip Ganassi Racing are merging and the #01 car Smith drove in 2008 will not be around next season. “I’m not going to say there’s no chance of it, but I haven’t had very much conversation with them [at Earnhardt-Ganassi] about it,” Smith said. “It’s probably more of a slim chance than some of the other opportunities I’ve got right now.” Among the teams Smith has visited was Furniture Row Racing in Colorado. That team likely will run a partial schedule next season. “I’ve been to the shop, and it’s a great place, a great organization and they’ve got a lot of tools to work with out there,” Smith said. “I was definitely very impressed with it. I didn’t realize there was a shop with that much technology outside of North Carolina.”(SceneDaily)(12-5-2008)
