Waltrip to announce Jarrett plans
05/12/06 Robert Yates Racing is prepared to lose Dale Jarrett to Toyota, but the organization doesn't plan to lose Jarrett's sponsor or teammate Elliott Sadler to the manufacturer set to enter Nextel Cup in 2007.
Michael Waltrip, who will field two Toyota cars next season, is scheduled to make a live announcement Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on SPEED regarding the future of his organization.
According to a source close to the situation, Waltrip plans to announce a deal with a current Cup driver.
Jarrett admitted last week at Richmond that he'd had discussions with Waltrip and that it was just a matter of finalizing details before he announced his future plans.
Eddie D'Hondt, the general manager at RYR, said Thursday there have been talks with Jarrett about him leaving the organization with which he won a championship in 1999 and has been with since 1995.
He would not speculate on who might replace Jarrett.
"We're as far as we can be with things,'' he said. "There have been talks about a whole bunch of things.''
But D'Hondt was optimistic that UPS will remain with the company.
"We are working through that with them,'' he said. "They're a great sponsor and we hope to continue with them for a lot of years.'' More at NASCAR.com