More sad news today..........
No 8 out at Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing
January 20, 10:53 AM
by Greg Engle, NASCAR Examiner
It looks as if the No. 8 Chevy at Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing will not run any races in 2009.
Monday the team laid off another 40 employees bringing the total number of employees cut from the newly merged organization to nearly 170.
The team had been hopeful that they would find a primary sponsor for car and driver Aric Almirola but with less then a month before the start of the 2009 season no sponsor has been found.
Barring any last minute sponsor salvation, the team will compete with two cars, the No. 1 and No. 41.
Dale Earnhardt Junior made the No. 8 Chevy famous before he departed the team in 2007 for Hendrick Motorsports. The car was campaigned by Almirola and Mark Martin last year. Martin has joined Hendrick Motorsports and will be behind the wheel of the No. 5 Chevy this year.
Bobby Labonte says the whole story about his decision to drive for Hall of Fame Racing and not Earnhardt Ganassi Racing in 2009 is not something he’s ready to tell.
“I think it’s a made-for-sitcom TV show, horror movie and drama all in one,” Labonte said Tuesday on the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “It was kind of wild.”
Reports had Labonte heading for the No. 8 Chevrolets, but he wound up in the No. 96 Fords for Hall of Fame as part of that team’s affiliation with Yates Racing.
Labonte said Earnhardt Ganassi Racing “just didn’t have a lot of the things in order to make it work for the whole season.”
“There were a lot of ‘ifs’ in there,” Labonte said.
Labonte said that once reports emerged about his potential deal for the No. 8, he didn’t shoot them down because things weren’t settled.
“Everybody was not 100 percent wrong. It just wasn’t 100 percent right,” he said.
“I mean, I figured if I stopped and said, ‘Stop talking or writing,’ that it would be worse than not having it out there anyway. I did learn those lessons from being in the sport this long, that if nobody is talking about you, you’re nothing.
“You know the talk might not have been 100 percent accurate, but at least there was talk. Some press is better than no press.”