Sorenson talking with Chip Ganassi Racing about 2009
Reed Sorenson says that he's working on a contract extension with Chip Ganassi Racing. The NASCAR Sprint Cup driver's current deal expires at the end of this season.
Sorenson, 22, has been racing with the team full time since 2006. The group is struggling as a whole this season, with Sorenson 30th in the standings entering this weekend's 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
The driver says that his recent schedule has been the major factor disrupting the talks with team owner Chip Ganassi.
"We're working on it right now," he said Tuesday. "The past month or so I've been testing a lot and going out of town a lot, and just last week I was in Nashville for two days testing, so I've been out of town a lot, and we're working on it right now pretty hard. So we'll see what we can come up with here pretty soon."
Asked specifically if he would consider a move to another team, Sorenson turned the focus back to his own organization. Earlier this season, Ganassi shut down its No. 40 team with driver Dario Franchitti because of a lack of sponsorship. Teammate Juan Pablo Montoya entered the year with high expectations, but he is 22nd in the standings as the entire group has struggled in adapting to NASCAR's new car. That model appeared at a number of tracks for the first time this season.
"I've just been trying to focus on what's going on with week to week basis as far as our race team," Sorenson said. "As a whole organization we've kind of been struggling on these bigger mile-and-a-half tracks and really just been, there's a lot of stuff going on in the shop with the 40 getting shut down and people moving around and things like that, so that was ... was a pretty big change for everybody, so just trying to get used to that and trying to make sure we can get better on these bigger tracks has kind of been the main focus."
