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News surfaced this week concerning the Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) organization. It seems that Gibbs has an association with the FedEx Corp. through his head coaching position with the Washington Redskins football team. The Redskins home field is the FedEx Field at nearby Landover, Maryland in the outskirts of Washington, DC. FedEx announced at its recent sales meeting in Orlando, Florida that it would be sponsoring a third car next season in the Cup Series for Joe Gibbs Racing. The JGR Chevrolet will carry the number eleven and will be piloted by J. J. Yeley, who started driving part time this season for JGR in the Busch Series.

It was previously rumored that Greg Biffle was JGR's top choice for the ride, they wanted a veteran for the new sponsor to insure success. It's common knowledge around the circuit that new teams starting out in Cup racing with rookie drivers haven't garnered much headway. Gibbs was probably trying to circumvent this in order to insure the stability and longevity of the new team. FedEx may have had something to say about the driver choice, and another matter is that Yeley may have been under contract with Gibbs to assume any new team that materialized. Rather than to risk the expensive ploy of breaking a contract, Gibbs and FedEx may have had to go along with putting Yeley in the driver's seat to start out the season. A broken contract was responsible for putting Kasey Kahne in a Dodge instead of a Ford, when Robert Yates put Jason Jarrett in a Talladega car instead of Kahne. The contract snafu allowed Kahne to drive for Evernham Motorsports and also to drive a Dodge in the Busch Series instead of his usual Ford development ride. As we are all aware of by now, just because Yeley starts the season out in the new ride, doesn't mean that he'll keep the position. Most Cup racing contracts have the clause that drivers can be discharged due to poor performance, at the discretion of the owner, and/or sponsor.

Other recent news affecting the Busch Series has Paul Menard moving from Andy Petree Racing to Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI). The move has reportedly temporarily shut down Petree Busch Series operation. Menard is heir to the 180 store Menard's Home Improvement store chain and takes the Menard's sponsorship with him to DEI. Plans are being formulated to put Menard in a DEI Busch Series ride beginning with the Loudon race. It hasn't been made clear yet if he will be driving for the Chance II division of DEI owned jointly by Dale Jr. and his stepmother Teresa Earnhardt, or if he will be driving a DEI owned car. DEI has made their plans known to have the driver and sponsor move up to the Cup Series beginning with the 2006 season.

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