Teams With Question Marks

We've already seen 2 teams shut down for 2010. Schaeffer Racing and PPB Racing have already announced they won't participate in 2010. Now, there are some other teams with question marks behind them.

Hyneman Racing- After a disappointing year with Billy Pauch behind the wheel, Glenn Hyneman announced in August that he and Pauch were parting ways. Since then, the team has only raced a very limited amount of races with Mike Gular behind the wheel. The team has sold a lot of equipment, and every indication points to them sitting out 2010. However, we saw Hyneman pull something similar to this a few years ago, and only lasted about 1/2 a season before he returned to the dirt modified circuit with Jeff Strunk.

Dave Thompson Racing- Talk about a roller-coaster ride. The team came from nowhere in 2006 to following the Super Dirt Series tour with Dale Planck and Stewart Friesen. Within the next few years, the team then went through Dale and Friesen, and Alan Jacobs, and ended up with Danny Johnson at the end of 2006. Rumors swirled that the team was running low on funds and were going to fold, then, they end 2006 by winning the Fulton 200, sweeping Super Dirt Week, sweeping the 1/4 Mile Nationals at Five Mile Point, and winning the big block portion of Octoberfest. The team stayed high and stayed strong for 2007, until the end of the season when the rumors of the team being out of money started again. We saw Danny Johnson run the final Super Dirt Series race for JIR and saw Dave Thompson sell a lot of his equipment to Carey Terrance. Then 2008 comes around, and the team is back again, with Frankie Caprara. After a championship at Can Am, the team split at the end of 2008, Thompson hired Alan Johnson to drive the car for 2009, but the sponsors leave Thompson to stay with Frankie Caprara. In the end, Alan Johnson is let go before even running a race with the team, and Caprara starts the year in 2009, and runs and hires Danny Johnson making it a 2-car team in the middle of 2009. Then, we hear that Thompson has the cars parked a few weeks later, and both Caprara and Johnson are out of rides. Once again, Thompson survives and finishes the year running part-time with Johnson. Now, here we are again, it looks like Dave Thompson Motorsports may be dead, but it's looked that way before.

Norm Hansell Motorsports- Norm Hansell Motorsports isn't selling out or folding, but they have some major question marks for 2010 with who'll be behind the wheel. After starting the year with Doug Hoffman, Hansell and Hoffman parted-ways mid-2009. Rick Laubach and Tom Umbenhauer ended up racing the cars full-time at Big Diamond (Laubach) and Grandview (Umbenhauer) weekly to finish out the year. Now, for 2010, it's possible neither driver will be back. Laubach could end up running the Super Dirt Series, and wants to travel with the #7 big block team he ran at Super Dirt Week with. Norm Hansell wants to win, and he's not one who'll like a driver possibly missing some races. Umbenhauer on the other hand, seemed to be a part-time fix. Umbenhauer struggled in the 357, and seemed to run better with his own #19 small block modified. Umbenhauer is a solid driver, who's won races at multiple tracks, but he's not the "big name start" the Norm Hansell typically puts behind the wheels of his cars (Strunk, Howard, Friesen, Horton, DeSantis, Laubach, Hoffman over the past few season).