Germain Racing plans to keep Nationwide, Truck teams as it begins Cup effort
Germain Racing plans to keep its Nationwide Series program and at least one of its two Truck Series entries on track next year while it enters the Sprint Cup Series with Max Papis for at least 18 races.
“We’ve had a plan all along that we were going to expand this team and get it to the top level of NASCAR but try to do it in a way that as we went along, we grew the team at a reasonable pace and had some success in the series that we raced in,” said team co-owner Bob Germain, whose team won the 2006 Truck title with Bodine and has competed in the Nationwide Series in 2008.
“In my opinion, we were a little bit ahead of schedule. We didn’t start until almost all the way through the 2004 season. Our goal was to race in the Cup series.”
With Geico sponsoring half the season, Germain is looking to fill out the rest of the 2009 Cup schedule for Papis.
“Our hope was to probably get up to 25 races next year,” Germain said. “We want to try to do a lot of testing. I think it’s going to end up somewhere between the 18 races that we are now and a full schedule. We have a lot of potential sponsors that we’re talking to. The affiliation with Geico is one of the biggest selling features of the rest of the program.”
Todd Bodine will return to the No. 30 truck likely with Lumber Liquidators as the sponsor. The No. 9 truck (driven by Justin Marks and others this year) and the No. 7 Nationwide car (currently driven by Mike Wallace) still have their programs being sorted out.
“There’s also a possibility we may only run one truck next year,” Germain said. “It’s just based on what comes together in the next couple of month. But my hope is to run the two trucks, run the Nationwide car and do this Cup team.”
The move to Cup will be done with a technical alliance with Michael Waltrip Racing.
“What we were looking for was an affiliation with a Toyota Cup team,” Germain said. “We were looking for a team that felt we could bring something to the table for them, too. … We really felt that Michael Waltrip Racing would have an interest in seeing us succeed rather than taking our money in exchange for the support of engineering.”
Germain said Papis has tested well with the team and he believes Papis will be able to qualify for events. Papis is slated to run two races this year (Texas and Homestead-Miami).
“What I love about him is his passion for racing and his enthusiasm and his emotion,” Germain said. “His spirit and emotion and passion for what he does is incredible.”
With all the rumors of mergers on the Cup side, Germain said this is a good time to get into the Cup series.
“I think it’s going to be easier for a team like us to get into these races for the next couple of years, just due to the fact with the way the economy is,” Germain said. “We’re not going to have 50 entries for each race. You’re going to be looking at 44 or 45.
“That changes from race to race, but overall we picked a good time to get in there and, as a part-time team and having to qualify for races, I think we will have a much easier time than we would have a few years ago.”
