When Dale Earnhardt, Jr. announced last month that he was leaving DEI, I posted my reaction (and a prediction) to it in a post titled “NASCAR: Junior Drops a Bomb“.
In a press conference today, Junior finished his bombing run. He announced that he’d be going over to Hendrick Motorsports. In the “I told you so” department, I pretty much nailed that one.
What I didn’t nail was which driver Hendrick would boot to make room for Junior. I predicted that it’d be Casey Mears. Instead it’s going to be Kyle Busch to gets the hook.
While Busch has won a few races, he certainly hasn’t won any friends. His driving style would lead one to believe that he runs out of talent a little too soon. Now the rumor is that he’ll be going to DEI in a swap or to Ginn racing next year. Either way, he is a proven winner, and despite his over-aggressive driving style, he should be able to land with a half-way decent team.
The next question in the Junior saga is, who’s the sponsor? The obvious assumption would be Budweiser moving back to Hendrick. I’d guess there’s probably an 80% chance of that happening. As far as the car number goes, I daresay that Junior’s replacement will be driving the #8 next year; I don’t see DEI relinquishing control of that number.
So, one piece of the Silly Season puzzle gets put into place for 2008. Now we need to see where Busch lands.
