Changing Faces Dot '12 Outlook

How does this grab you?

“The new driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, from Unadilla, Ga…David Ragan!”

It could happen, given the Ford team’s hopes of attracting sponsors and doing something other than filling NASCAR’s 43-car fields.

It could be Brian Vickers, too, or any of the three that were in the cars in 2011 (Travis Kvapil, David Gilliland or JJ Yeley). Don’t forget David Reutimann, either.

Welcome to silly season 2011.

Paging through the proposed driver lineups, you’ll see that there are plenty of teams at a crossroads these days. Some of the big teams are set for 2012, but others are...not.

Hendrick has Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. back to go with new mate Kasey Kahne (and all the crew chiefs remain the same with the exception of Kenny Francis coming with Kahne). Ditto for Stewart Haas, with Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman and Danica Patrick in a limited role.

Roush Fenway still has Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle, but lost Ragan when UPS cut back to an associate role. RCR still has Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Paul Menard, but lost Clint Bowyer to MWR when General Mills cut back. Crew chiefs have also been shuffled, with Drew Blickensderfer going to the 31 and Burton, and Shane Wilson going from the now-defunct 33 car and Bowyer to the No. 29 of Kevin Harvick. Gil Martin, Harvick’s crew chief, is now the team’s director of operations.

MWR added Bowyer and will likely have Brian Pattie calling the shots for his team, along with the No. 56 of Martin Truex Jr. and the part-time No. 55 driven by Mark Martin, Michael Waltrip and a cast of thousands.

Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates and Penske Racing are standing pat, driver-wise, with Chasers Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski behind the wheel, but Busch’s crew chief Steve Addington bolted Busch for the spot opened when Darian Grubb was shown the door…a week after leading the No. 14 to the title.

Still scratching my head over that, but it was in the works before they won the title, and Addington—who likely set a speed record getting out of the Penske parking lot and over to Kannapolis—has worked with Smoke before.

Grubb has some options, as well he should, and at least one of them is from Hendrick. It’s an engineering gig, not a crew chief gig, and that might play a role in his decision. He’s likely going to want to prove that he was bus-chucked for no good reason (that’s an opinion) by becoming a huge pain in Stewart’s backside.

News has reached us here at ONMC HQ that Greg Zipadelli is fighting tooth-and-nail for a release from his contract at Joe Gibbs Racing. This is coming from the grapevine, but I reported after Martinsville that this was in the works so that Zippy could join the title-winning SHR squad as competition director.

Reports are that Zippy and team officials (notably J.D. Gibbs, among others) got into it big-time after Talladega, both at the airport and again at the shop, over driver Joey Logano’s pushing of Stewart during that race.

Zipadelli has a growing family, and it might be that he wants to get off the road for a while to see the nippers grow up. Thirty-eight weekends a year, plus long days at the shop, is a grind; I know, I’ve done it, and Zippy is pretty jazzed about his brood.

That’s just a small sample of what is going on these days inside the now-quiet garages of NASCAR’s top division.