JTG Daugherty Racing doesnt have enough sponsorship to continue running #47-Michael McDowell beyond next weeks NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway, team co-owner Tad Geschickter said Saturday. The team has sponsorship for Marcos Ambrose for the two Nationwide road-course events later this season but beyond that, Geschickter is not sure how many races the #47 car will run over the second half of the season. Toms snack company has sponsored the car for much of the first half of the season. Geschickter said the organization is concentrating on its Sprint Cup effort with driver Ambrose. The team is imbedded with Michael Waltrip Racing as part of a technical alliance. Whether that MWR relationship continues remains to be seen. As far as what were doing next year, we havent started discussions with them yet, Geschickter said. Well have to renegotiate for the next year. Theyve done a really good job. The secrets been that we have integrated our people into their shop.(SceneDaily)(6-28-2009)
UPDATE: The next race on the Nationwide Series schedule is in Chicago. But the driver currently 11th in the points won’t be making the trip, unless something surprising happens. Michael McDowell’s 16-race deal with #47-JTG Daugherty Racing is finished after Friday night’s Subway Jalapeno 250, and barring a last-minute reprieve from out of the blue, he’ll be on the outside looking in for the rest of the year. Co-owner Brad Daugherty said the decision to shutter the team had little to do with performance. Instead, it was a matter of allocation of resources, trying to stretch a limited amount of sponsorship money across two programs. “We’re really trying to concentrate hard on our Cup effort, so it didn’t make sense from a business model to take from that effort financially to keep this going. If somebody wants to come along and look at the opportunity, we’ll be glad to do it, but this is what we planned on doing and we knew when we got to this point, it was going to be tough on everyone.”(NASCAR.com)(7-3-2009)
UPDATE 2: JTG Daugherty Racing will show up at Chicagoland Speedway for the Nationwide Series race next week but how much it will race in the event and whether Michael McDowell will be in the seat remains to be seen. Funding to field a competitive ride for McDowell has run out, but team co-owner Tad Geschickter said Friday night the #47 car will show up at Chicagoland.(SceneDaily)(7-4-2009) Comment here
