Roush Fenway Racing's Nationwide lineup has Erik Darnell in part-time role

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

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Roush Fenway Racing plans to move current NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Erik Darnell into the Nationwide Series next year, but the organization’s complete lineup is still being finalized, and some spots are dependent on sponsorship.

Team owner Jack Roush said Wednesday that he expects to run four or five full-time Nationwide cars and at least one full-time truck. Carl Edwards, who drives for Roush in the Cup series, will also compete for the drivers’ championship in the Nationwide Series, and Colin Braun will do the same in Trucks.

The rest of the Nationwide lineup likely will be a mix of drivers. Darnell, who is sixth in the Truck standings, likely will run in Nationwide, Roush said.

“If a sponsor came and very much wanted to have Erik back in the Truck series, we would certainly think about that,” he said. “If Erik is going to advance – my understanding of his career goal wasn’t that he wanted to be a Truck driver for his career but to advance into Nationwide and into Sprint Cup.

“We have got an opportunity. Although he’s not running for a championship, he’ll get a significant number of races in a Nationwide Fusion next year.”

Edwards and Roush Cup teammate David Ragan are running the entire season in the Nationwide season this year, but Ragan will not next season.

“David, in terms of looking at his [2009] program and his third year in Sprint Cup and what the benefit is to his Sprint Cup effort from the information or the experience coming off his Nationwide car, we think there won’t be as much benefit given the fact that the cars are so much different,” Roush said. “And it’s such a challenge for the races where you don’t have coincident races between Nationwide and Cup.

“It’s really hard for the driver to make the best effort that he can in either. We think as close as David has come to the Chase [For The Sprint Cup] this year, to have him focus on the Sprint Cup effort for the Chase next year is probably the best allocation of his time.”

But what about for Edwards?

“Carl is just a racing dog,” Roush said. “If there is time and energy available to go run for a championship in a series, he’s going to do it – at least with the mindset he has today. And we’re anxious to support it.

“Clint Bowyer has done a great job over there [in the Nationwide Series] and has a big lead on us here [this year], but Carl is anxious to go win another Nationwide Series [title] and would very much like to win a championship in both the Nationwide and Cup in the same year. So we’ll try that again next year if it doesn’t work out this year.”

Roush added that he would like to get development driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in a truck next season after a year where he challenged for the title in the Automobile Racing Club of America ReMax Seires.

“We certainly are not limiting our interest in Trucks to one truck even though we’ve scaled back to one truck that is sponsored adequately at this time for 2009,” said Roush. Later he added, “We would look at with greater interest [than Darnell] to having a full program for Ricky Stenhouse or one or two other drivers that we haven’t really had a chance to audition yet. In the Truck series, that’s typically where we … like to start them.”