Ginn's Apparent Departure Not Too Surprising

When Bobby Ginn bought MB2 Motorsports last season, the move was heralded as a way for the small team to compete with NASCAR Nextel Cup's big teams.

After all, Ginn was known as a real estate mogul with some deep pockets, and the guy promised to do everything possible to get into victory lane .

The season started incredibly for the new owner. He had already landed Ford-forever driver Mark Martin to pilot his No. 01 Chevy and he was inches from having a Daytona 500 victory.

His way of handling his operation was different -- especially after booting Joe Nemechek from his stable ride that he had consistently performed in. He kept Nemechek around in a No. 13 ride, but it wasn't the same, and for Nemechek, it really was a raw deal.

Ginn did dive in head first with his pockets. Not only did he start Nemechek's team, he had to manage Sterling Marlin's No. 14 and Regan Smith would be driving full-time Busch in addition to splitting time with Martin in the No. 01.

But all of that big action has seemingly caught up with the (former?) owner who has his own blimp.

Smith's Busch series team is gone. Nemechek and Marlin have lost sponsorship and have lost their rides. And now Ginn Racing seems to be folding by itself into another resource for Dale Earnhardt Inc.

I think a key point in the merger talks is that DEI will stay DEI with the addition of Ginn's resources, leaving you to believe that Bobby Ginn is getting so tired of racing and the costs associated with it if he can't even keep his name on the building.

And that really is a shame.

A shame for Nemechek, Marlin, and Regan Smith (who doesn't seem to fit into the Ginn-DEI merger, just a week after he was named a new Cup driver for the team). A shame for the employees of Ginn Racing who thought they had a good opportunity to work with a new, competitive race team pre-2007. And a shame for Jay Frye, the guy who sold his owning interest in MB2 to Ginn.

Did Ginn have the right intentions? Sure.

But intentions doesn't make you innocent in a court of law, or when you knock somebody out of a job. It all goes down as a failure.

Obviously, though, Ginn didn't seem to understand that he couldn't just run cars with his resort names on them and expect to make a nice return. Sponsorship didn't happen for the team's non-Martin cars, despite having success in Busch Series and quality drivers in the Cup Series.

Something wasn't right at Ginn Racing, and it's hard to put a finger on what. It is easy, though, to say that the new owner had something to do with it because MB2 was an organization that managed to make ends meet for a long time.

Ginn has blamed the financial problems on growing too fast, and yeah, that's right.

But you've gotta believe inexperience was a heavy factor, too.