James Finch said Thursday that he expects to announce the sale of #51 Phoenix Racing on July 15. He said the prospective owner passed muster in terms of the most necessary qualification for owning a team that competes in Sprint Cup and Nationwide racing. ‘Hes somebody whos got money’ Finch said. Unable to find a long-term sponsor for his racing team the past three years, Finch has been saddled with the exorbitant costs required to drive on a weekly basis. Unwilling to shoulder that burden any longer, he said previously that he intended to race through the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 28 before ceasing operations. Now he believes he has found a buyer who will take over and keep the team running through the rest of the year and beyond. Finch wouldnt reveal who the potential buyer is, but he did say the prospective owner has not owned a racing team before. ‘Im in negotiations with an individual to buy the team, and if he does that Ill let him finish out the year’ Finch said, adding that details of the sale will be reserved until July 15. ‘Hes a qualified buyer, so hopefully we can make everything work. Ive got close to 800 starts. Thats a lot of weekends, you know what I mean? Ill help (the new owner) get started and stuff like that. Ill go attend some races a little bit, but Ill be out of ownership. I might run a few Nationwide races out of his shop, go play or something. But full time is over for me. Were going to the shop (in Spartanburg, S.C.) this next week and telling the employees, ‘Heres the new guy, and this is the plan.'” The Sprint Cup schedule rolls through Daytona next week for the Coke Zero 400, and Finch said he will have Regan Smith or AJ Allmendinger in the drivers seat for that race. ‘Regans concentrating on trying to win the Nationwide championship’ Finch said. ‘If he wants to drive at Daytona, hes been so good the last two (restrictor) plate races Im going to give him the opportunity. If he wants to concentrate on the Nationwide championship then we will have AJ finish up the next three races.”( Sun Herald )(6-28-2013) UPDATE: A source close to the situation told ESPN.com the potential buyer is Harry Scott Jr., the co-owner of Turner Scott Motorsports, which competes in the Nationwide and Truck Series. Finch, 63, said he should know if the deal will go through by July 15. If not, he said the organization will shut down after the July 28 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway due to a lack of funding. ‘My last race is going to be the Brickyard [400] that Im going to fund’ Finch said Friday. ‘Ive been trying to make this sale happen to keep my employees. Ive got some of them jobs with different teams if I shut down. If the guy buys the team, they will be able to stay and go forward racing.” Finch has 18 employees in his Spartanburg shop located just over an hour from the NASCAR hub in Charlotte ( ESPN ). AND Team General Manager Steve Barkdoll confirmed the pending sale to Sporting News on Friday. Barkdoll was vague on whether the new buyer also is bringing a driver. He indicated that Allmendinger would drive the next three races at Daytona, New Hampshire and Indianapolis. ‘(The owners preferred driver is) not necessarily for all the races’ Barkdoll said Friday morning at Kentucky Speedway. ‘Nothing has really been talked about (on) that for sure. & We know that AJ is going to drive the three races in July. That gets us hopefully to the announcement. After that, we havent looked past July yet on the driver part.” Barkdoll said he is ‘very confident” of the sale being completed by the middle of next month. Barkdoll did say that Jacques Villeneuve, who drove for the team last week, is not the prospective buyer but would not go into details about who is buying the team.( Sporting News )
