Hall of Fame Racing exploring merger or acquisition opportunities
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Hall of Fame Racing doesn’t have a full-time driver for the rest of 2008, and the team is looking at a variety of options for 2009 on both who will drive and how many cars the team will have.
Those options include a possible merger/acquisition of another team, Hall of Fame Racing co-owner Tom Garfinkel said Saturday.
“There’s just about everything you can imagine going on in this garage, people talking to people,” Garfinkel said in the Bristol Motor Speedway garage. “The funny thing is that the rumors that I hear we’re involved with we’re not and the ones I don’t hear about are the ones [we’re talking with].
“We’re evaluating all our options for next year … to be able to build a great team and be competitive in the future.”
Garfinkel said the team would like to stay with Toyota but it might change depending on what happens.
“As we look at other teams’ situations, some of them require different manufacturers and we’re having those conversations as well,” Garfinkel said.
As far as a driver, the team had Ken Schrader in the car at Bristol. It likely will put Joey Logano in the car later this year, but Garfinkel said he would not comment on those reports until after Joe Gibbs Racing’s announcement Monday, where it is expected that Logano will be named the full-time driver of the No. 20 Cup car next year.
The team used Brad Coleman at Michigan and plans to use him more. He will participate in a Goodyear tire test this week at Kansas Speedway. As far as 2009, it could depend on whether Hall of Fame increases to two or more cars with a merger or acquisition.
“We obviously still think a lot of Brad and [are] trying to get him ready,” said Garfinkel, whose team is outside the top 35 by 241 points. “At the same time … we want to put ourselves in the best position every weekend.”
