Team Rensi on Monday afternoon announced an immediate driver change for its No. 25 NASCAR Busch Series team, claiming they were releasing driver Bobby Hamilton Jr. to allow him to "devote the remainder of the 2004 season to his Nextel Cup career."
There was just one problem. Hamilton Jr. never asked for such a courtesy.
"I don't understand why. All I got was a call Monday afternoon from Ed Rensi (a co-owner) saying there would be a driver change effective immediately," Hamilton Jr. said.
"He didn't say why. He made it clear I was not going to Bristol and that was pretty much the end of the conversation."
Late Monday, Team Rensi released a statement announcing the driver change, which included team co-owner Sam Rensi's claim the move was made to allow Hamilton Jr. to focus on his Cup career.
Busch and Cup series veteran Jeff Green will drive the No. 25 for the rest of the Busch season, Rensi said.
As of Monday, Hamilton's crew chief Harold Holly was expected to remain with the team, at least for the foreseeable future.
Hamilton Jr. and Holly, are moving to PPI Motorsports next season, where Hamilton Jr. will drive the team's No. 32 Chevrolets in the Nextel Cup Series. Hamilton Jr. has also driven James Finch's No. 09 Dodges part-time in Cup this season.
Hamilton Jr. knew nothing of the team's statement until it was read to him over the phone by a reporter while he was in the middle of an interview.
"That's just a cheap way to get rid of me. Well, it's not going to be too cheap. They still owe me money and I'm going to get paid," Hamilton Jr. said.
"They'll put some driver in there and probably just pay him 50-percent of the race winnings and try to make it look like there was a problem with the driver, but I can tell you there were many problems.
"If you're going to be a championship caliber team, it goes deeper than who is behind the wheel; it goes deeper than who does the engines. Nothing against Jeff Green, but a new driver isn't going to solve the problems this team has."
After Holly joined the Rensi organization last season, the duo racked up four victories and came just shy of winning the 2003 Busch title. Hamilton Jr. was a favorite for the title this season.
He is eighth in series points this season, but is still searching for his first win in 2004. He has seven top-five and 12 top-10 finishes and one pole.
"With Bobby and Harold Holly's announcement to move to the Nextel Cup series in 2005, I felt that it would be best to allow Bobby to prepare for his career change now and allow Team Rensi Motorsports, with Harold's help, to begin the process of preparing for 2005," Sam Rensi said.
"We have started our search for a new crew chief to bring in now to replace Harold and use the rest of the season for a smooth transition before he assumes his duties with PPI Motorsports in 2005."
Hamilton Jr. knew of no such plans before Monday afternoon, he said.
"Over the past couple of weeks I've had people come up to me and ask if the team was going to make it to the end of the year, asking about financial problems, and I was like, 'What are you talking about?'" he said. "But all of this is suddenly making more sense.
"If I wanted to I would just walk away and spend every day up at PPI getting ready for next year, but that's not who I am. I want to race."
Hamilton Jr. said he hopes to finish out the 2004 Busch season with another team. As of late Monday he was fielding several calls about possible rides for Friday night's race at Bristol, Tenn.
Additional calls seeking further comment from representatives of Team Rensi went unreturned as of late Monday.
They probably released because of his whiney little attitude. Sounds like a personal issue at any rate.
Oh well, if he is going to be full time for the remainder of the 2004 season, I'll be adding him to the driver selection list with a 10k salary. I'll probably wait until the salary change in a few weeks.
i read another article on this and it basically said that Hamilton was so far out of points contention (since its a 2-horse race) that it was better to quit now and look for a full time driver (not Green) to get started on team chemistry for next year.
Holly is staying as crew chief just to smooth transition for new chief once he is selected.
how typical is it of Hamilton though to start bad mouthing them right from the get go on the phone without at least attempting to talk to Rensi first (it was the first he had heard of it, remember).....i say he last three years in Cup competition at best!
