Yeah, you wonder who will be next on the chopping block … those are just the drivers who have been let go, but there’s a bunch of crew chiefs too, though some of them probably were deservedly so.

You have to wonder about loyalty at that whole organization. Gillet’s moves obviously sucked the morale out of Ray Evernham; he just seems to want to get away from the whole thing now, and it’s hard to blame him.

If I was A.J. and Reed, I’d be looking over my shoulder for the entire year if I wasn’t running well … that’s a pretty stressful way to live.

Personally, I hope the sponsors bolt — the articles have said that at least one is very unhappy with the decision and considering leaving.

What goes around comes around … and George Gillet may have a lot coming his way before long.

As to A.J. … good luck over there at GEM. Nothing like the pressure of replacing a veteran race-winner with a guy whose finished in the top-10 a handful of times (a very small handful). Enjoy it whie you can … you could be next.

First, it was obvious that Ray Evernham was being pushed out. Ray’s comment after the firing of Patrick Carpentier was that he had absolutely no say in that decision which made it quite clear that he was no longer part of the decision-making process.

Secondly, speaking of Patrick Carpentier, am I the only one seeing a pattern at GEM – a pattern where a driver is booted in favor of the next great driver??? Patrick Carpentier was brought in with a lot of flourish and Scott Riggs booted. Sure Scott’s contract was due to expire but they didn’t even let him finish the season. In less than a year Patrick is the one being booted in favor of AJ Allmendinger. Now Elliott gets booted for AJ. It makes me wonder who the next one will be to get the boot – AJ?? Reed?? My money is on Reed to not finish out the 2009 season. From what I have been able to determine, they still don’t have full sponsorship for his car and that could definitely be used as an excuse.

When George Gillett came into the picture we were told he was the “sponsor person”, the guy who could bring in bigtime sponsors. Okay, he brought in Budweiser for Kasey or did he? Was it George or was it Ray who brought them in -we really don’t know. Then Best Buy came on as a sponsor for the 19 car and Stanley Tools moved from the 10 car to the 19 car. Again, we really don’t know who negotiated that. Of course, when Stanley Tools moved to the 19 car that meant they weren’t sponsoring the 10 car anymore and Valvoline dropped much of their sponsorship of the 10 car and they ended up doing almost race-by-race sponsorship for that car. Then Unilever announced that it was dropping fulltime sponsorship of the Nationwide to do a partial sponsorship for JR Motorsports. It could be interpreted that they wanted to scale back on their sponsorship, but considering the developing pattern my guess would be that they weren’t happy with GEM.

It’s a shame that George Gillett doesn’t understand what he is throwing away by forcing Ray out. He may be a good businessman , although I’m not even convinced of that since I’ve been hearing rumors that he’s in financial trouble and trying to sell some of his teams. He certainly doesn’t have the NASCAR knowledge and experience of Ray Evernham. A smart businessman knows his area of expertise and allows others to be in charge in their areas of expertise. It seems like George Gillett wants full control and wasn’t willing to take advantage of Ray’s knowledge and years of experience. I won’t blame Ray if he sells the rest of his interest in GEM and wish him the best with his new endeavor. Hopefully when he sells the rest they will change the name so he will no longer have to be associated with the company.

For those people who say that Elliott has been the most overrated driver the last several years, I disagree. First of all, I don’t recall seeing where anyone has rated him with the likes of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, etc. I will admit that Elliott didn’t set the world on fire at GEM but he wasn’t exactly terrible either. I guess people forget that when he took over the 19 car it wasn’t even in the top-35 in owner points. He managed to get it into the top-35 and keep it there. Sure we all wanted him to do better, but Dodges in general have struggled as evidenced by the fact that not one Dodge made the Chase in 2008. Even Kasey Kahne, who won six races in 2006, struggled – it’s not like he forgot how to race all of a sudden.

I’m sure there are other factors in this decision but the leading factor seems to be that AJ had a better average finish in those last five races than Elliott. Last time I looked the season wasn’t five races long so it will be interesting to see what AJ does over the course of an entire season. Or does he even get an entire season??? Considering what has happened to the past couple “new” drivers I wouldn’t be surprised to see him or Reed gone before the end of 2009.

Although it doesn’t seem like it right now, this may be a blessing in disguise for Elliott. I see Gillett Evernham as a sinking ship and it might work out better for Elliott in the end. It’s said that things happen for a reason and I have found that to be true, even though it didn’t seem like it at the time. I’ll be cheering for Elliott to land on his feet and wish him success wherever he goes.