Johnny Sauter will drive a third Busch Series entry and Ron Hornaday will drive a fourth Winston Cup car for Richard Childress Racing during NASCAR's season-ending weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Sauter and Kevin Harvick combined in RCR's No.21 Chevrolet to give Childress the Busch car owner's championship. Both will race in Saturday's Ford 300 at Homestead, with Sauter in the No.29 Chevy.
"This is as much Johnny's trophy as it is Kevin's and everyone else involved with the RCR Busch teams, so we wanted to get him in a car for the final race of the season," Childress said. "It should be a lot of fun to see what Kevin and Johnny have up their sleeves for a postrace celebration."
Hornaday, a Busch regular for RCR and one of six drivers vying for the championship in that series, will also join Winston Cup regular Harvick, Robby Gordon and Steve Park in Sunday's featured Ford 400 Cup race.
PARTING WAYS: New NHRA Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon was given his release by Force Racing after ending the 10-year title reign of boss and teammate John Force.
"Tony's been a great teammate but it looks like he has made plans to move on," said Force, a 12-time Funny Car champ, who won 10 consecutive titles until this season.
"I don't know what he's going to announce or when he's going to announce it, but, bottom line, we're releasing him from his contract ... so that he can do whatever he needs to do to get ready for the 2004 season."
Pedregon, who has driven for Force since 1996, said he will announce his plans later. There has been considerable speculation that he will join older brother Cruz - the last driver to beat Force for the championship before this year - in a team.
"It's always been his dream to race with his brother Cruz and I know better than anyone else how important it is to follow your dream," Force said. "We've left the door open but we've got some pretty exciting ways we can go to fill the seat."
Tony Pedregon won seven times on the way to his first championship.
STEPPING IN: Darren Manning has mixed feelings about his opportunity with Chip Ganassi Racing, one of the IRL's elite teams.
The English driver, a rookie in CART in 2003 with underfunded Walker Racing, is taking the place of Tony Renna, who died in a crash last month at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Renna was killed during a tire test, his first time in a Ganassi car.
"We had talked to Chip before they signed Tony," Manning said. "I think I was one of the guys on the short list alongside with Tony.
"I probably knew the call was going to be coming after the unfortunate accident," he added. "It was a lot of mixed feelings - excitement that I was going to get the drive, and a lot of sorrow getting offered the drive in these circumstances."
COMING BACK: Carl Edwards, the top rookie in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series throughout the season, will be back next season in the Roush Racing No.99 Ford.
Edwards goes into Friday's season finale at Homestead eighth in points with three wins and 13 top-five finishes.
"I can't wait to run for the championship next year," Edwards said. "I've learned so much this season that will make us a better team in 2004."
