(WOMR file photo)
When Sprint Cup testing begins this Thursday morning at Daytona International Speedway, there will be one well-known NASCAR name missing among the list of team owners. Earnhardt. The #1 and #42 Sprint Cup teams, which were run the last five years under the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates banner, will now return to their former name: Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.
The sign outside the North Carolina shop already has been changed, and stickers on the cars and patches on the driver and crew uniforms will carry the Chip Ganassi logo instead of the EGR logo. Ganassi officials confirmed the change Wednesday but had no comment on the financial structure of the current organization, which fields Sprint Cup cars for Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson.
Teresa Earnhardt, widow of seven-time Cup champion Dale Earnhardt and owner of Dale Earnhardt Inc., has not been involved in the day-to-day operations of the team and with the change apparently no longer has any financial stake in the NASCAR operation. There will be no change in the operation of the Ganassi teams, as Teresa Earnhardt has had little influence on the organization’s day-to-day operations.
Ganassi separated the race team from the Earnhardt-Childress Racing engines, and began using Hendrick Motorsports engines in 2013 in its two Cup cars.(in part from the Sporting News)
It has been many years since there was a Teresa Earnhardt spotting at a NASCAR race! Not sure what impact, if any, that this latest change has on what was once a huge racing empire that Dale Sr. had carved out in NASCAR. At one point DEI, Inc. was valued at approximately $50 million dollars, that was in 2001. That also was when her step son, Dale Jr, was driving the DEI #8 Chevy. However, DEI fields no race cars, and has an interest in half of an engine supply company with Richard Childress, ECR engines.
I would estimate that Teresa Earnhardt is not destitute these days, however, owning a financial racing empire worth in excess of $50 million dollars is not exactly the description that one would attribute to Mrs. Earnhardt these days, either!
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK
