Tony Stewart Fans like myself won’t be cheering the #20 next year, and probably won’t be bleeding orange and black anymore. It has been announced that Tony has been released from his Joe Gibbs Racing contract starting next year and will be joining Haas Racing. Tony has purchased a portion of the racing team and will now be a driver/owner.

Joey Logano is expected to take the #20 Sprint Cup car, crew chief Greg Zipadelli, and the Home Depot sponsorship. While this makes me sad, Tony knows what he’s doing and frankly, I wish him all the best.

Ryan Newman is said to be in the running for the 2nd car at Stewart Haas Racing, a move I’d actually like to see as I do like Newman.

I knew I shouldn’t have done that afghan in “Tony Stewart” colors yet. Good luck to all involved in this move, that truly, shouldn’t be all that shocking to anyone.

On his SIXTH Sprint Cup Series win this season! Awesome job! Stupid me thought the race was today, so I was quite shocked when I got in the car after work last night and my best friend had the race on the radio! This is what Charity gets for not paying attention to the schedule! LOL

It kind of sucked that Tony was sick though. At least he got to do part of the race and get his driver points, and Yeley didn’t get him too bad of a finish, although FoxSports and NASCAR’s websites had differing opinions of who got what spot at the end of the race!

Another congrats to Denny Hamlin for winning the Nationwide Series race and to Joe Gibbs Racing for the 13th win in 18 Nationwide races. JGR’s Nationwide program is kicking major ass this year - as it should!

Oh yeah - and congrats to Elliott Sadler who my best friend informed me got engaged sometime this past weekend. They were talking about it during the race I guess.

And I apologize for having neglected this blog. I’ve been having a few “issues” lately and have been dealing with them instead of blogging here. I hope to be back to my normal schedule soon.

According to this article on Fox Sports, Gibbs Racing may already be looking to put Logano in Tony Stewart’s current Cup ride. Now I’m all for giving the kid a chance, and if Tony should come out and say “Hey, after this season, I want to drive for someone else” I can see Gibbs giving the #20 to Logano. However, as Gibbs says in the article, they haven’t actually reached that point yet. They could still very well work out a deal with Tony to keep him at Gibbs. And I’m hoping they do. If they want Logano in a Cup ride, my idea would be to get a 4th car going.

To my idea, leaving isn’t going to help Tony any unless he goes back to driving Chevy. Why? Because this year it’s COT & Toyota. Granted, Hamlin & Busch made the same switch, but don’t forget, Tony’s older than they are. We old folks are set in our ways. Yes, that was a joke. But one thing I’ve noted about Tony is that he likes to race Chevys and frankly, I think that if he does make a move to a new team, it’ll be a team that runs Chevy. If he does, then by all means, stick Logano in the #20. If not, get a 4th ride because I don’t want to see any of the Gibbs drivers removed from their rides.

Do you think that a new team would cure Tony’s slump? Honestly, I don’t know. Right now, I’d really rather he stay with JGR. But you know what? I’m a Tony fan and if he moves to a new team, well, I’ll go right along with him!

Congratulations to Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his awesome win at Michigan today! THE LOSING STREAK IS OVER!!! YES!!! Now if only we could get Tony Stewart a win…life would be perfect. My best friend was hoping Denny Hamlin would take the win, I was hoping Tony would take it, but in the end, Dale Jr. finally got a win. Again, congrats to Dale Jr on an AWESOME win! And he even managed to keep from running out of gas until after he took the checkered flag.

I have to say, congrats to Joey Logano! I was hoping he’d win after Kyle Busch crashed out. I was disappointed that Kyle crashed out, but happy to see Joey get his first win on his third career start. Way to go Joey! Keep it up!

I see Kyle did triple duty again this week - 7th in the truck race, crashed out of the Nationwide and I didn’t catch where he ended up finishing due to that, and tomorrow the Sprint race. I hope he does well tomorrow. Although I am interested in a comment he made - he said he was done when asked if he would be at Milwaukee next week, so is he done with Nationwide for the season, or what? I guess I’ll figure it out after Milwaukee if he doesn’t start any more Nationwide races. LOL

If you happen to have seen this particular story on AOL.com, you can see that the NASCAR rumor mill never stops. First we have  Tony who is being courted by a few teams, but has stated more than once that he has not asked for an early release from JGR and that JGR has not given any indication that they would do so anyways. Then Montoya has supposedly been sniffing around JGR to take Tony’s spot if he leaves.

Here’s a thought…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Frankly, I hate to say it, but there’s nothing wrong with Tony Stewart, Greg Zipadelli, and Joe Gibbs Racing. EVERY driver goes through issues and slumps. Hello? Dale Jr and Kasey Kahne ring a bell? And you can bet that Kyle Busch will go through one at some point too. It’s the nature of the sport.

So why worry about it? Frankly, I’d prefer to see Tony stay with JGR & Home Depot. Of course, there’s always a chance that if Tony leaves and goes somewhere else that Home Depot will go with him. But hey, no problem. If that doesn’t happen, I’m sure I’ll get used to his new team, new sponsors, etc. I just hope I can keep from calling his crew chief Zippy.

Why is everyone so worried about Kyle Busch having done triple duty last weekend? Who cares? He’s 23. If he wants to do triple duty and fly all over creation, more power to him! I don’t see anything wrong with it at all. So what if he didn’t win any of the races? He came in 2nd in the Truck series and it was only due to crashing out that he didn’t get anywhere in the Nationwide and Cup races. You can bet your bottom dollar that if he hadn’t crashed out, he’d have either won or been right there at the top in both those races as well.

Besides, except for the fact that all three races were in different states, it’s not anything he hasn’t done before. I’ve watched the Truck series, then the Nationwide, and then the Cup and seen him in all three on the same weekend. So why is it such a big deal? Because no one had ever done it before when they had to hop from place to place to place. Big deal. Kyle did it, he showed it could be done, and I say good for him.