Silly season leaves some drivers out of work for '08

Johnny Sauter is out of a job after he discovered his Haas CNC team valued veteran results over the potential of youth. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

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With the announcement Monday that Jeremy Mayfield will replace Jeff Green at the helm of the No. 66 Haas CNC Racing Chevy, Mayfield took more than just a ride away. With one stroke of the pen, he took the proverbial door and slammed it shut on the 2007 Nextel Cup silly season.

After six months of rumors, denials and subsequent surprises at every turn, the game of NASCAR musical chairs has finally ground to a halt for '08, with several stock car racing veterans left standing -- in need of future work, but with nowhere left to mash the gas pedal. Indeed it's a lonely place to be a free agent now if you're a driver. With all of Nextel Cup's current rides filled for next season, the only options left are to roll the dice with a proposed new team that currently doesn't exist -- and may never come to be -- or simply bite the bullet and look for driving work away from the No. 1 racing series in the country.

Here's a look at what full-time drivers are still out in the cold and why, and whether they'll have a shot at landing anywhere at all in NASCAR next year:

Johnny Sauter

Current team: Haas CNC Racing, No. 70 Yellow Transportation Chevy

2007 stats: 31 starts, 0 wins, 1 top 5, 2 top 10s, 31st in driver points.

Résumé includes: Career-best 5th place finish at Richmond this September; three top-10 finishes in 63 career Cup starts; three-time Busch Series winner.

Knew he was gone when ... Jeremy Mayfield was announced as the second Haas CNC Racing driver after weeks of speculation; team GM Joe Custer responded to Sauter's future Monday by claiming they were "resolving" his '08 driver contract with the team -- doublespeak for settling their differences and moving on.

Out of a job because ... Haas CNC Racing got impatient. To be honest, Sauter's done a great job with this program. Of the eight new full-time teams that debuted on the Nextel Cup circuit in '07, the No. 70 car is the only one that has earned a qualifying exemption every week since the fifth race of the season. Taking the reins of a program that was hurriedly slapped together, Sauter's first full-time season in Cup has produced better results than half the rookies racing for Rookie Of The Year honors (Sauter was fired halfway through the '04 season with Richard Childress Racing, and wasn't eligible to run for the award again). But a future filled with upside wasn't enough for a Haas CNC program that's desperate to win now; Mayfield's two Chase appearances overshadow any accomplishments Sauter's had to date.

Best fit now? At 29, Sauter has a reputation for being a scrappy, hard-nosed kid who's aggressive and talented. That fits well with Robby Gordon, who's looking to start a new, second team in Nextel Cup, but does Gordon have time to get both the money and the equipment to come together?

Tony Raines

Current team: Hall of Fame Racing, No. 96 Team DLP Chevy

2007 stats: 30 starts, 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 1 top 10, 30th in driver points.

Résumé includes: 9th place finish at Talladega this season; career-best finish of 6th over 113 Cup starts; 4-time winner in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Knew he was gone when ... Team ownership changed hands from Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach to baseball execs Jeff Moorad and Tom Garfinkel. A midseason slump of five finishes of 34th or worse this summer left Raines at risk, and with the future of the team in the balance, the owners chose a younger alternative in 31-year-old J.J. Yeley.

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