Yates not ruling out merging possibility

By Rea White
Friday, August 18, 2006
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BAMBI MATTILA / NASCAR SCENE

BROOKLYN, Mich. - While Doug Yates spent the week denying a report that his Robert Yates Racing organization had been sold, he's not ruling out forming a partnership to help his company expand.

Robby Gordon Motorsports officials have said that their company is speaking with RYR, among others, about forming some sort of partnership for the future. As a single-car operation, Gordon's team is at a disadvantage in the Nextel Cup garage. RYR team co-owner Doug Yates said that no deal had been made or would be made to sell his team, he paused noticeably when asked to clarify as to whether there was the possibility that a portion of his organizaion could merge with another.

"I don't know. Like I said, we're looking for opportunities to grow our business," he said Friday at Michigan International Speedway. "You have to make smart decisions for the future. My dad [team owner Robert Yates] is at the point in his career where he's making every decision every day, he wants to pass the torch off and I've got a lot of responsibility on my shoulders and sometimes you need some energy to help you get there so we're going to see how things shape up and make the best decision for our organization, our people, to give us a chance to get our cars in victory lane.

"That is the goal. How you get there, those are tough decisions, but the goal is to get our organization back where we can win the Brickyard, we can win the Daytona 500, we can have four teams that are competing at a very high level every week so that's a tough, how do we get there, and that's what we're looking for."

Asked to specify whether he could rule out selling part of his program, Yates defined how difficult the situation is for a two-car team trying to compete with larger programs.

"We're looking at all opportunities to try to make our program stronger and at the end of the day, we've been in business for a long time and those are tough decisions," he said. "It has to be the right situation and we have to feel it will give us better performance and more energy if we decide to do something."

If, and Yates heavily emphasized the if, he did alter the structure of his team, the plan would be to expand immediately.

"That's the goal, that's the real goal.," he said. "... We need to [grow], so how do we do that?"

Mentioned Drivers: Robby Gordon

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