By: Marshall Pruett May 24, 2018 7:21 AM Le Mans-winning race engineer Leena Gade is no longer part of the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports IndyCar team.

The Briton, who joined the Indianapolis-based outfit during the offseason, left the team on Wednesday morning.

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Her exit comes after five events as James Hinchcliffe’s engineer on the No. 5 Honda. Gade’s experience, forged primarily in sports car racing where she scored multiple victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the Audi LMP1 team, was put to the test in the unique multi-discipline environment found in IndyCar.With its diverse challenges spread across road courses, street courses, short ovals, and superspeedways, IndyCar has been a steep challenge for new engineers to achieve rapid success. Gade’s former Audi Sport race engineering colleague Justin Taylor, who joined Ed Carpenter Racing as JR Hildebrand’s engineer in 2017, faced similar hurdles as a first-time IndyCar engineer. He returned to sports car racing at the end of the season.While some could link Gade’s departure to Hinchcliffe’s failure to qualify for Sunday’s Indy 500, signs of hardships were visible on pit lane during the recent April 30 Open Test and continued as practice got under way last week. The culmination of those struggles pointed to a natural winding down of the relationship after Hinchcliffe’s car lacked the speed to remain in the field of 33 on Bump Day. Although the team made subsequent errors that kept the Canadian from making a final run to try and bump his way back in, the underlying issue that placed the team in the situation drew back to insufficient pace.Considering her past achievements, Gade’s services as a race engineer – especially with the 24 Hours of Le Mans just weeks away – will likely be in high demand.

By: Kelly Crandall | September 4, 2018 12:32 PM Although Furniture Row Racing has confirmed the worst — it will cease operations at the end of the season — there are still some big questions to be answered. The most significant being where does Martin Truex Jr. land?Truex is the reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion and has become a hot commodity in recent years. Landing at Furniture Row in 2014, he rocketed into the spotlight when the success started in ’15 with a playoff appearance followed by multiple wins in ’16 and then, of course, his incredible ’17 championship run.One possibility is that Truex will head to Joe Gibbs Racing, which has been the alliance partner of FRR the last three seasons. Gibbs could put Truex in the No. 19 Toyota and shift Daniel Suarez over to Leavine Family Racing because LFR has been heavily rumored to be making a manufacturer change to Toyota.Joe Gibbs told ESPN after the race at Darlington that he likes his stable of drivers and likes Suarez. But an available Truex, a driver who has won 17 races since 2015, is going to be very enticing.If crew chief Cole Pearn is going to be a part of the package, then even more so. Pearn is one of the brightest minds in the garage, and every team would rather compete with him than against him.Stewart-Haas Racing might have an open seat if Kurt Busch leaves, as he has been rumored to be doing. SHR is a championship-winning organization that has only gotten stronger since aligning itself with Ford.What else is out there? Not much, if Truex is honest with himself when it comes to ready-to-win teams. While it is looking for a new alliance partner, Leavine is also looking for a driver to replace Kasey Kahne. But Leavine is still building itself up as single-car operation and has not finished better than 26th in the points.And just to put it out there, we still don’t know the futures of drivers and teams who aren’t getting as much silly season attention. Among those: If Kurt Busch doesn’t take the No. 1 car, does the seat still open if Jaime McMurray retires? What about the future of Ryan Newman at Richard Childress Racing? Roush Fenway Racing also has decisions to make with its No. 6 car. But until Joe Gibbs Racing firmly shuts the door on hiring Truex, the speculation will lean heavily toward his landing there.And, oh, by the way, another charter is now available for the taking as Furniture Row will have to sell theirs. Sure, it may not sound important as charters continue to change hands, but because of the performance of Truex and the team the last few years, this charter will be one of the more valuable ones as a portion of the revenue a charter brings is based on the last three years’ performance of the car associated with it.

By: Kelly Crandall September 4, 2018 11:37 AM Furniture Row Racing says it has been left “with no reasonable option” but to close its doors at the end of the season.The defending Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship organization based out of Denver, Colorado, had been sponsor hunting since 5-hour ENERGY announced earlier this summer that it would not be returning next season. 5-hour ENERGY is one of the co-primary sponsors on the No. 78 Toyota for driver Martin Truex Jr., appearing on the car in 14 races.“This is not good for anybody,” said team owner Barney Visser. “The numbers just don’t add up. I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team and I’m not going to do that. This was obviously a painful decision to arrive at knowing how it will affect a number of quality and talented people.“We’ve been aggressively seeking sponsorship to replace 5-hour ENERGY and to offset the rising costs of continuing a team alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing but haven’t had any success. I feel that it’s only proper to make the decision at this time to allow all team members to start seeking employment for next year. I strongly believe that all of our people have enhanced their careers by working at Furniture Row Racing.”FRR dominated the Cup Series a year ago with Truex. En route to their first championship, Truex won eight races, including the season finale for the title, captured a series-high 19 stage wins and led over 2,000 laps. Truex joined the team in 2014.For the first time in its history, FRR ran two cars last season with rookie Erik Jones. 5-hour ENERGY served as Jones’s primary sponsor before moving to Truex’s car this year as Jones left to go in-house at Joe Gibbs Racing, the alliance partner of FRR. Since debuting in the Cup Series in 2005, FRR has been primarily a single-car operation.“While I am saddened by today’s announcement, I totally understand the decision,” said Truex, who has won 17 of the company’s 18 races. “Barney Visser, Joe Garone and the entire Furniture Row Racing team took me in while my career was in a bad place, and together we reached the pinnacle of the sport. I will forever be grateful to each and every one of them, and also to Furniture Row, Denver Mattress and the Visser family.“But make no mistake, this is not the immediate end. We still have unfinished business to attend to and that’s to give everything we have to successfully defend our Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship. Right now that is foremost on my mind as it is with the entire team.”Kenny Wallace finished 34th in the team’s first race at Dover in 2005. The team began competing full-time in the series in 2011 with Regan Smith and scored an improbable victory in the Southern 500.In 2013, Kurt Busch drove the car into the playoffs for the first time. Busch finished 10th in points, which was a career-best for the organization until Truex took over. Truex finished fourth in 2015 after scoring the company’s second career win and making the final four.It was not until this year that the organization had a season’s worth of sponsorship paid for by someone other than Visser. The business owner had been funding the car out of pocket with his home furnishings and bedding company. 5-hour ENERGY shares the car this season with Bass Pro Shops and Auto-Owners Insurance.“I’ve always felt that we could be a competitive team and run for a championship even when it seemed like a pipe dream to many racing insiders,” Visser noted. “But to be successful in any business you need to assemble the right people and make a strong commitment to succeed. We achieved what we set out to do and feel like we climbed Mount Everest. To continue with anything less than a competitive team would not be acceptable.“I had a wake-up call last year (heart attack) and while I feel great I need to make the best decisions that will have an impact on myself and my family. My wife Carolyn and the entire Visser family have been supportive of our racing journey and it’s been one incredible ride for all of us.“There are so many people I want to thank because without them winning a championship and being competitive would never have happened: Joe Gibbs Racing for our technical alliance, Toyota and TRD (Toyota Racing Development), Bass Pro Shops, 5-hour ENERGY, Auto-Owners Insurance, Furniture Row and Denver Mattress.“A heartfelt thank you to Joe Garone, Martin Truex Jr., Cole Pearn and all of our team members for their talent, dedication and sacrifices they made along the way. To the Furniture Row and Denver Mattress employees I want to express a special thank you for always having my back from the early years of our race team to our championship run.“I also want to thank the fans, the Denver community, NASCAR, International Speedway Corporation (ISC), Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) and independent track owners for providing and maintaining the venues that we compete at. A special tip of the hat to the media and to NASCAR’s broadcast partners – FOX, NBC, Motor Racing Network (MRN), Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM Radio. We’ve always been treated fairly by members of the media and I appreciate their hard work in one of the most demanding schedules in major league sports.”Truex will again compete for the championship, having qualified for the playoffs with wins earlier this year at Fontana, Pocono, Sonoma and Kentucky. He sits third in points going into the regular season finale this weekend at Indianapolis. There has been no announcement regarding the future of Truex or his crew chief, Cole Pearn.

By: RACER Staff | September 15, 2018 3:47 PM Ryan Newman will not be back at Richard Childress Racing in 2019, ending a five-year run with the organization.

“I want to take a moment to let everyone know that I will not return to Richard Childress Racing in 2019,” Newman wrote on social media. “I have very much enjoyed driving the No. 31 car and I want to personally thank Richard Childress and everyone at RCR for the support over the past five seasons.“I’m not ready to announce my future plans at this time, but it is my full intention to compete in the NASCAR Cup Series full-time in 2019 and beyond. We are currently working through the options for next season and hopefully we will be able to announce those plans in the very near future.”

Team owner Richard Childress told NASCAR.com that the team was not ready to reveal next year’s plans for the No. 31.

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“We knew we were going to change,” Childress said. “It’s just when we were going to announce it.”Newman did not advance to this year’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, marking the second time in the past five seasons in which he didn’t make the postseason. In his first year with the team (2014), the No. 31 was a dark horse that reached the Championship 4 in Miami, almost winning the championship before finishing second to Kevin Harvick in the race and in the standings.Newman won just one race with RCR, coming last year at ISM Raceway in Phoenix. Among his 18 Cup wins are the 2008 Daytona 500 with Team Penske and 2013 Brickyard 400 with Stewart-Haas Racing.

He has seven top-10 finishes in 26 races this year and sits 17th in the standings, 58 points behind Alex Bowman, the final driver in the playoffs.One of the possibilities for RCR could be Daniel Hemric, who has been in the Richard Childress Racing camp for two seasons now in the Xfinity Series, making the Championship 4 last season. In addition to RCR’s two Cup Series cars, they will have a third charter to decide on for next season, when the one they leased to StarCom Racing returns. Hemric previously described his 2019 plans as “very cloudy.”

“I don’t know where it’s going to end up or how it’s going to all play out,” he said in August. “But I know Richard’s doing all he can to make sure hopefully there’s a spot for me, and if there’s not, I’ll feel out any option out there because as of right now, I don’t have my name signed on any line for the following year. I’m trying to do everything I can on the racetrack to prove to somebody who may be willing to put me in a car and give me a shot — and hopefully, when that shot comes, I can take advantage of it.”

By: RACER Staff September 15, 2018 11:13 AM Ryan Newman set the pace in the second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Las Vegas, running a lap of 183.892mph around the 1.5-mile oval.Playoff contenders Ryan Blaney (183.268mph) and Aric Almirola (183.194mph) were second and third fastest, respectively, in the caution-free session. Hendrick Motorsports rookie William Byron (183.107mph) was fourth fastest, with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Daniel Suarez rounding out the top five with a lap at 182.822mph.

By: RACER Staff | September 12, 2018 7:15 PM Jack Roush confirmed Wednesday that Trevor Bayne will not return to the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford in 2019.“We’re making a search,” Roush said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio when asked what the team’s plans were for Bayne and the car. “We’re in negotiations with drivers right now that would drive the 6 car next year. I think the decision’s been made. I don’t want to be breaking the story here, but I think the decision’s been made and it’s been announced that Trevor is not going to be in the car next year.“Who it’s gonna be, who we’re talking to and how close we are in those negotiations, I’m not at privilege to say, not inclined to say based on the fact that we are negotiating.”

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Roush did not indicate who would fill the seat, but asked if he preferred a veteran or a young talent, Roush responded, “I want a driver that can be fast. Be fast and win.”Bayne has split seat time in the seat with Matt Kenseth, who returned to the team part-time at Roush’s insistence starting at Kansas in May. In 16 races, the 27-year-old has averaged a 21.0 starting spot and 24.4 average finish, with a season-best finish of 11th in the Aug. 18 Bristol race. Since taking over the No. 6 Ford full-time in 2015 season, Bayne earned four top-fives and 13 top-10s in three full seasons.Kenseth’s best finish this year is 12th at the Brickyard 400. He said in late August that no decisions had been made by him or Roush about what happens in 2019.