Several NASCAR driver jobs still open

ATLANTA — With today's scheduled announcement of the second driver at Stewart-Haas Racing, the pieces of the Sprint Cup driver-swapping puzzle are rapidly falling into place.

All signs point to Ryan Newman taking over the No. 4 Chevrolet that will be a team car to Tony Stewart's No. 14 next year. Last week, Martin Truex Jr. announced that he had extended his contract with Dale Earnhardt Inc. through 2009.

Still to be decided are several key rides, including the fourth team Richard Childress Racing will field next year, the No. 45 at Petty Enterprises, the No. 12 at Penske Racing, which is being vacated by Newman, and the No. 20 at Joe Gibbs Racing, the car now driven by Stewart.

Casey Mears, now driving the No. 5 for Hendrick Motorsports, appears to be headed for one of the open rides, and David Stremme, now a test driver for Penske, said last week that he's "99.99 percent certain" that he'll be back on the Sprint Cup circuit full-time next year.

Rookie Joey Logano, already racing for Gibbs in the Nationwide Series, is being groomed to drive Stewart's No. 20 in Cup.

In somewhat of a surprise, it appears that Kyle Petty won't be asked to return full-time to the No. 45 Dodge, even though his father is a co-owner of the team. Petty could drive a third, part-time entry.

Will three tracks swap races?

Atlanta Motor Speedway president Ed Clark has said in the past that he's intrigued by the idea of moving his late October Sprint Cup race to Labor Day weekend, when it could be run under the lights.

That likely would involve a three-way race-date swap between Atlanta, Auto Club Speedway in California and Talladega Superspeedway. Under one possible scenario, Talladega would wind up with Atlanta's Halloween weekend date, and Auto Club Speedway, now racing on Labor Day weekend, would get an early October race, in the Chase.

It all might be about to come together. AMS officials have set a news conference for Tuesday but haven't said what they will discuss.

Sorenson hoping to return with Ganassi

Reed Sorenson indicated this week that he's likely to return to Chip Ganassi's team next year.

"We're working on it right now," he said. "The past month or so I've been testing a lot and going out of town a lot. ...We're working on (a new contract) pretty hard, and we'll see what we can come up with pretty soon."

Sorenson, who is 30th in the points standings, said his main focus is on trying to help his team improve its performance, especially on intermediate tracks.

Rick Minter writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.