Crew chief Tony Gibson, who will leave after this race to be the crew chief for Ryan Newman at Stewart-Haas Racing, says the scene at Dale Earnhardt Inc. is not good after the company laid off about 100 employees as part of its merger with Chip Ganassi Racing. Gibson is in the process of trying to finalize a plan to allow his team to move to Stewart Haas Racing.
As for what it's like at DEI, this is what Gibson said Friday at Homestead:
"It's scary right now,'' he said. "They let 100-some people go. It's real scary. Nobody is really talking. I kind of got out of the loop once I made my decision to go. I kind of got shut out of some of those meetings over there, which that should be the case. I know last week it was real quiet in that shop. A lot of guys were uncertain about what their future is. Some people aren't going to want to merge that are working there. They're really confused and not sure how this is going to work. I don't think they've worked the motor deal out yet. I don't think they've worked a lot of things out yet. So, a lot of people really got nervous. It's like a morgue over there right now. It's understandable.
"DEI is trying to do what's best for them, so they can survive and Ganassi is trying to do the same thing. There's a lot of people doing it. I really, really hope they survive this. I hope that two or three years from now they can split back and do their own deal. I really hope that because they've been great to me. It's been a great company. They've treated me really, really good, seven years I've been there.''
But Gibson knew it was time to go earlier this season.
"Months ago I went to them and asked them if they had a long-term package for me there because I really wanted to say and there was just nothing really concrete at that time, that was back before the merger,'' Gibson said. "We didn't have any sponsorship for the 8. All we had was for the 1. It just really didn't look that good, so I had some people come and talk to me, Childress and Stewart-Haas and a couple of other people about doing other things, and I kind of put it off as long as I could just giving DEI a chance to put something together but everything kept deteriorating really fast, I just felt like it was in my best interest to look for something different.''
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
# Bobby Hutchens will be the director of competition at Stewart-Haas Racing next year.
# Kyle Busch will miss his exhibition run in a Formula One car. "I don't get to drive the Formula One car anymore,'' Busch said Friday8 at Homestead. "NASCAR cancelled it on me, so I have to applaud NASCAR for that. I have to go to the Nationwide banquet and accept my sixth-place awards instead. NASCAR took me away from the Formula One car.''
# Juan Pablo Montoya was fastest in Friday's practice session with a lap of 171.282 mph. Ryan Newman was second at 170.708. Points leader Jimmie Johnson was sixth fast at 170.336 mph. Carl Edwards was seventh at 170.256 mph.