Although Chip Ganassi Racing president Steve Lauletta states that the organization is in negotiations with Reed Sorenson, Co-Owner of Chip Ganassi Racing Felix Sabates feels differently.

“From my point of view, his contract is over,” Sabates, said. “I think Reed is today as good as he’s ever going to be. If somebody else wants to put him in a car, fine with us.

Sorenson is in his third year with the organization’s Sprint Cup team and has yet to put up a strong year. He has yet to rank higher than 22nd at the end of his previous two seasons, the 22nd position came last year. So far this year Sorenson is located in the 30th spot in the standings.

It appears that the lackluster driver is going to be headed to Gillett Evernham next year to pilot the No. 10 Dodge.

“We have a pretty good idea that he’s going to drive the 10 car,” stated Sabates. “I wish him good luck.”

In addition to that, Texaco has announced its departure from NASCAR putting the No. 42 car driven by Juan Pablo Montoya in a bad spot.

The organization will need to fill in the seat of the No. 41 and find sponsorship for half of the 2009 season for the No. 42 team.

“Texaco was a great sponsor for a long time, but for the last year they really have been disconnected with the sport,” Sabates said. “They have
focused on other things. We really didn’t get much support from them. The money wasn’t all that great.  

Sabates noted that the sponsor was more of a “liability” to the team, stating that they should have already started looking elsewhere for sponsorship but did not do so out of loyalty to Texaco.

“Texaco was a liability for us because out of loyalty to them, we weren’t aggressively looking to replace them,” Sabates said. “We kept hoping they maybe would wake up one of these days and decide they need to be in NASCAR.”

Sabates also cut down the sponsors management by declaring, “The Texaco management is disconnected from racing. All the new people don’t know what a race car looks like.”