■ AJ Allmendinger will not finish the season with Red Bull Racing, giving up his seat to Mike Skinner and Scott Speed for the final seven Sprint Cup races.
Allmendinger is not returning to the No. 84 Toyota next year, and the team is letting him go early so that he can pursue another job. He finished a career-high ninth in his Red Bull finale Sunday at Kansas Speedway.
Skinner, who drove the car for five races earlier this season, will drive the car the next two weeks at Talladega and Lowe's Motor Speedway.
Speed, who is making the transition from Formula One to
NASCAR under Red Bull's guidance, will make his Sprint Cup Series debut at Lowe's in a third Red Bull entry. He'll finish the year in the No. 84 by driving at Martinsville, Atlanta, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead.
Speed is believed to be in line to drive the No. 84 full time next season.
■ In one of the stranger moves in recent weeks, Paul Menard, a Cup tour regular since the summer of 2003, is leaving the Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevy camp to move to the Ford camp to work with car owners Doug Yates and Jack Roush.
Menard, whose best finish overall was seventh at Atlanta in 2006, has yet to post a top-10 finish with DEI this season, but DEI has been on a turnaround the past two months, with three of the top six qualifiers last weekend at Kansas Speedway. Menard finished 27th in the Camping World RV 400.
Menard has been expected to move to Yates-Roush for several months. The Journal first reported that plan in late spring.
"This is a great opportunity," Menard said. "I think a lot of what Doug Yates and Max Jones (Yates' business partner) are doing over there."
The business side of the Menard move is obvious. As the son of Midwestern businessman John Menard, he has access to numerous major sponsors, not only Menards itself but also Johns Manville, Super Clean, Quaker State, Pittsburgh Paints, MOEN, Sylvania, Energizer, Turtle Wax, Vertis, PEAK and NIBCO.
But can Menard do the job at the wheel?
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