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2008 NASCAR Tickets & NASCAR Schedule
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Stewart acknowledges other offers on the table Posted:0535hrs Reid Spencer,Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Amid a firestorm of rumors about his future plans, Tony Stewart acknowledged Thursday afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway that he had received offers to drive for other teams, with ownership options included.
"Obviously, it's a shock, when they don't know anything about it," Stewart said of the reaction at JGR. " ... But we wanted to be up-front and honest with them and say, 'Listen, this is what's being presented to us.' "Like I said, they've been such great partners all along that it's not something -- like I said, there's nothing broke at Joe Gibbs Racing. There's nothing that needed to be fixed. There wasn't a problem over there. So we felt like the best thing to do was be up-front and honest with them from day one about it and at least let them know what was being offered to us and let 'em know what was going on and why we were taking longer to discuss our contract with them than what we had planned." Stewart acknowledged that his representatives had met with Haas CNC Racing to discuss the possibility of buying into that team. Since then, Stewart said, he has received other offers. Haas CNC Racing purchases the engines for its Chevrolets from Hendrick Motorsports. Stewart, who drove Pontiacs and Chevys (both General Motors products) before Gibbs switched to Toyotas for the start of the 2008 season, fields Chevrolets for his own USAC teams. Chevy and General Motors also are sponsors at Eldora Speedway, Stewart's half-mile dirt track in Rossburg, Ohio. Joe Gibbs racing president J.D. Gibbs, however, expects Stewart to remain with his current No. 20 Home Depot Toyota team through the final year of his contract. When rumors of Stewart's sooner-than-expected departure began to surface, Gibbs called a staff meeting at the team's race shop in Huntersville, N.C. "We talked to our team guys today, and I think Tony and our team's on the same page," Gibbs said Thursday during an interview on Sirius Satellite Radio's Tradin' Paint. "Our goal is here over the next couple of years-- '08, '09, that's when Tony signed to race with us -- that we're going to go full-bore and hopefully win a bunch of races and championships together. --(Cont'd From Front Page)--
"Our hope is, long-term, when you do that, this is the spot he chooses to retire. The reality is that we
only control the next couple years, and we went through this the last time in his last contract
negotiation. He had a lot of options then, too, and a lot of things out there."
As Stewart sat and talked to the media at Talladega, however, he sounded intrigued by future
possibilities that did not include Joe Gibbs Racing.
"There's a couple groups that have thrown some ownership in the mix," Stewart said. "We didn't go out and
say we're looking to leave Joe Gibbs Racing. We haven't made a hundred-percent decision yet on what we're
going to do, but we're going to look at all the options -- and the options are exciting all the way
around.
"It's pretty exciting as a driver to be in this position. For me, it's been a huge honor to get these
offers, because it kind of gives me a perspective of where I fit in this series, and what the car owners
think of me."
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