NEWMAN!
It's official: Ryan Newman is leaving Penske at the end of the year to race for the newly formed Stewart-Haas race team.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what he can do over there with Tony Stewart as a teammate. Both are from Indiana and have a good relationship off the track (something I think Newman and Kurt Busch lacked.) This also means Newman will be switching from Dodge to Chevy which hopefully means a bit more performance. For the past couple seasons, the Penske team has shown flashes of brilliance but continue to struggle just outside of the top 12 chase positions.
The downside to this is that this is going to be a new race team with no points. They'll have to race their way into the first few races until they can get locked into the top 35 owner points. Both drivers tend to post solid qualifying runs though so hopefully that won't be a problem.
The other downside for me personally is that Ryan will no longer drive the #12 car. When I originally started following Ryan, it was because he was from my hometown, raced my favorite number, and he went to Purdue while I was there. Oh well, having Tony Stewart as a teammate will be good. I never could get around to cheering for Kurt Busch even though he mellowed out and shifted the booing to his idiotic brother.
It's unlikely that Alltel will be the sponsor of the new team due to NASCAR's arrangement with series sponsor Sprint. Home Depot will be following Tony to the new team.