How Kahne's move to Hendrick could impact Danica, sport

Hendrick Motorsports announced today that it has signed Kasey Kahne to a contract through 2015, beginning a set of musical chairs that may not be completed for a couple of years and could even impact Danica Patrick, who is a Hendrick driver competing for JR Motorsports in the Nationwide series, and the rest of the sport.

Although Hendrick has signed Kahne, he won't drive for the team next year. Dale Earnhardt Jr. signed a five-year deal when he joined the team in 2008. Jimmie Johnson's contract goes through 2015. Jeff Gordon has a lifetiime contract. Mark Martin's contract goes through 2011 and in the announcement Tuesday, Hendrick Motorsports stated that Martin will drive the No. 5 car for the team through the end of his contract. So with NASCAR's four-team limit, there's no room for Kahne at Hendrick in 2011 (he'll join the team in 2012, taking over the No. 5 when Martin's deal ends).

So where does Kahne drive next year? Likely Stewart-Haas Racing. The organization has stated it wants to expand and even has assembled a pit crew to pit Bobby Labonte's car for TRG Motorsports this year to add depth on the pit crew when another team is added next season. So, things are in motion for at least a third car at SHR with Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman. If not there, then car owner Rick Hendrick would  have to find a place to put Kahne for a season. A less likely scenario would be moving JR Motorsports up to Cup (Hendrick owns an equal quarter share of that team with Dale Jr., Kelley Earnhardt and Tony Eury Jr.), although that would be difficult to see at this point with the struggles the organization has had in getting full sponsorship for its Nationwide cars. Still, it's a possible backup plan.

If you go with the idea that Kahne goes to Stewart-Haas Racing next year, then for 2012, there's an empty seat there. Although we're talking a couple of years down the road and anything can happen, Jeff Gordon seems like he'd like to race into his mid-40s so he will still be at Hendrick along with Johnson, Kahne and Dale Jr. So where does that leave Danica Patrick? Her deal  with Hendrick is to drive in about a dozen Nationwide races for JR Motorsports this year and in 2011 with the prevailing thought being she could move to Cup in 2012. With Kahne taking over the No. 5 car -- where some speculated Patrick would end up -- there's no room at Hendrick for her.

One idea could be (provided JR Motorsports hasn't moved to Cup by then) would be to maybe go to Stewart-Haas Racing and serve an ''internship'' there in Cup while waiting on a possible seat at Hendrick. Recall, she signed a two-year contract with a third year as an option in the IRL with Andretti Autosport, so in 2012 she could still run both NASCAR and IRL. If she did that, one idea (and this is maybe on the wild side) is for Patrick to share that Cup ride in 2012 with Mark Martin. It's hard to imagine that once Martin's deal with Hendrick is done in 2011 that he'd just quit racing period. Provided he wins a couple of races this year and next, it would be easy to see Martin willing to run at least a partial schedule and maybe help work with a younger driver (kind of like what he did a few years ago with Regan Smith).

Again, many things can happen between now and then, so much can change. Plus, we've yet to hear the plans of the other high-profile free agents this year -- Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch. There's been talk for sometime by many that they wouldn't be surprised to see Harvick at Stewart-Haas Racing. Such talk has died down with the team's improved performance but still Harvick has not said what he's doing after this year -- the final year of his deal with Richard Childress Racing. Busch also is the final year with Penske and while Penske has picked up the option for next year, Busch said in the preseason he was still free to look around.

Put away all the speculation for a moment and what is the lesson out of Hendrick signing Kahne?

That every other top-tier team had better work harder at stregthening alliances or risk racing for whatever spots are left behind the Hendrick armada. Just remember before Tony Stewart became involved in Stewart-Haas Racing that organization, although aligned with Hendrick even then, was awful. Now, it's created two strong organizations that have combined to win four of the first seven races of this season.

Roush Fenway Racing has an alliance with Richard Petty Motorsports but there are questions there. Recent reports have stated that RPM defaulted on a loan between $70-90 million, although the team claims it was done to restructure the loan. RPM was hit hard after losing Dodge factory support last year and led to its move to Ford. Still, all four of RPM's drivers entered this year in the final year of their contracts -- Kahne (moving to Hendrick), AJ Allmendinger, Elliott Sadler and Paul Menard.  If Roush can help prop up this organization, it won't benefit Roush and then Roush could fall further behind Hendrick.

This also could be a critical time for Penske Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing. Neither team is aligned with another Cup program. JGR tried it a few years ago with Hall of Fame Racing and that proved to be a disaster.  Of course, the challenge for both is that they haven't yet reached four cars per team. JGR has always been among the slowest teams to follow such trends in going to a two-car team and even a three-car team, so maybe they can continue to thrive but if Hendrick and SHR can share information between six, seven or even eight cars in the future, that makes it more challenging for a Penske or Gibbs which doesn't have four cars yet. The key for Gibbs and Penske is to work smarter but should they head down the wrong direction, it could take them a long time in getting back.

At least Richard Childress Racing has alliances with TRG Motorsports and Furniture Row, but both single-car operations are just struggling to be competitive it's hard to see how much they can help RCR compete with Hendrick/SHR in the future. And although Earnhardt Ganassi Racing won the Daytona 500 with Jamie McMurray, it remains a two-car operation and that could make it even more difficult to compete for a race wins and titles. Even Michael Waltrip Racing has partnered with JTG and PRISM (although PRISM is essentially a start and park operation that one could question what value it adds to MWR).

Look, bigger isn't always better in some cases, but Hendrick Motorsports is showing that bigger can be much better in Cup. Now,it's up to the other teams to decide -- if they haven't already -- how they're going to be stronger and better. Because if they don't move soon, they could be racing for a spot outside the top 5 (Just think at Phoenix, Hendrick and Stewart-Haas Racing swept the top four spots).

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HAMLIN UPDATE

Here's the latest on how Denny Hamlin's knee is feeling (via his team's weekly release):

"It's feeling much better really. It's still sore, and I have a long way to go but I am definitely making progress. I went from Phoenix to Los Angeles for a commercial shoot, but I have been able to keep working on my rehab and I don't see any reason that I will have trouble with my knee by the time we get to Texas. Unlike Phoenix where we had to use a ton of brake, Texas is much different so I will be in the car and expect to go the full distance just as I did at Phoenix last weekend. ... My knee will only get stronger and the same can be said for our team. We are generally slow starters but we've had some awful luck so far this season and that's hurt us when we had some good runs going. We are still in contention so once we hit stride, I think we'll be fine.''

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IN TROUBLE

A look at how far out of the top 12 in points some drivers who went on to make the Chase were after 7 races.

2009 --- Brian Vickers was 19th at this time, 98 points out of the final Chase spot

2008 -- Jeff Gordon was 14th at this time, 101 points out of the final Chase spot

2007 -- Martin Truex Jr. was 19th at this time, 108 points out of the final Chase spot

Based on that, here's a look at the drivers in this year's points standings outside 100 points of 12th (currently held by Kyle Busch)

20. Jamie McMurray -- 110 points behind Busch

21. Juan Pablo Montoya -- 132 points behind Busch

25. David Reutimann -- 184 points behidn Busch

26. Kasey Kahne -- 189 points behind Busch

26. Brad Keselowski -- 189 points behind Busch

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SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU GO HMMMMM

# Points leader Jimmie Johnson is the only driver in the top 12 to have won a race this year. Other race winners this year are: Kurt Busch (14th in points), Ryan Newman (16th in points), Denny Hamlin (18th in points) and Jamie McMurray (20th in points).

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