Robert Yates Racing Merges With Champ Car Team

INDIANAPOLIS — In what is increasingly becoming a sign of the times in NASCAR, middle-level teams are either merging or forming partnerships in order to remain competitive with the bigger teams of the sport.
Last week, Ginn Racing merged with Dale Earnhardt, Inc., with team owner points getting shifted to DEI driver Paul Menard in order to ensure him a spot in the starting lineup for the rest of this season. Sterling Marlin and Joe Nemechek were both turned loose after the Chicagoland race two weeks ago.
Of course, Earnhardt is leaving DEI at the end of this season to join Hendrick Motorsports.
Earnhardt was asked about the irony involved in that Teresa Earnhardt was unwilling to give up ownership of the race team to meet her stepson’s demands but willingly sold part of the team to Bobby Ginn in the merger of the two operations.
“I don’t even know anything about that,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know what she did or what the percentage was. I don’t know anything about how much the check they wrote was for or anything. I don’t think anybody will ever know.”
In an odd twist, Mark Martin is now teammates with Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
“I’ve always liked Mark,” Earnhardt said during Friday’s long rain delay at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “He taught me and he taught Matt Kenseth and a lot of guys that raced against him in the Busch Series so much about racing and etiquette and patience and how much there is out there in your race car. I’ve seen him do things in a race car that I just couldn’t believe.
“He’s always spoken well to me personally and about me within the media. We just have a pretty good respect for each other and I think we have a good friendship. We both got great shots at making The Chase and even better now that we have a teammate in Mark Martin.”
In another instance of teams coming together, Robert Yates Racing has entered into an engineering and technical partnership with Champ Car team Newman/Haas/Lanigan.

NEW CREW: Paul Newman (left), Ricky Rudd of Robert Yates Racing and Carl Haas address the media Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. RYR merged with Champ Car Series team Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing this week. (Autostock Photo)

The longtime Champ Car team has Sebastien Bourdais and Graham Rahal as the team’s drivers, but this arrangement will see the two teams share engineering resources to remain competitive.
“We’ve got a group of people that are going to complement us and grow our business to make this what we want to be and what they want to be,” Yates said. “I think we’ve picked out the right partner, and we’re happy that they came to us.”
This will be Champ Car team owner Carl Haas’s third involvement with a NASCAR Cup team. He was previously involved with Michael Kranefuss in the 1990s and later with Travis Carter on a team that failed when its sponsor, Kmart, entered into bankruptcy protection.
“I think it’s really exciting, and I’m honored to have this happen and being together with people that are so knowledgeable, particularly in this type of racing,” Haas said.
“I don’t know exactly what to tell you, but Robert being in this program, and I’ve known him for a long time — not that close, but I think it’s gonna be a good program that we’re putting together.  The people we have, I think, is really the way to go.”
RYR general manager Doug Yates further explained the value of the partnership.
“We’ve looked at how do we make our program better? How do we get back to doing what we want to do, and that’s win races and compete at a high level?  That’s why we’re here,” Doug Yates said.
“We looked at a lot of different scenarios, but the guys we’re sitting next to are seven-time Champ Car Series champions.  They just won their 101st race last week and they’re winners and class people.
“That’s who Robert, myself and my mom want to be known as is classy people, and we want to do things right.  We’ve found some people that are of the same make, we think, and together we think with the Newman/Haas/Lanigan engineering and marketing, and with what we’ve built here in NASCAR, we really believe in our hearts that we can make this work.”
Team owner/driver Kyle Petty does not believe the latest business moves are good for NASCAR — that the sport is getting smaller, not bigger.
 “I’m still not convinced it’s the right thing,” Petty said. “Which team has flourished or grown or done anything with it except the Roush Fenway deal around New Hampshire. The other mergers or buyouts, I still haven’t seen anything.
“I see contraction; I don’t see expansion. That’s the problem.”