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There is to be no more speculation, no more rumor.

Joe Gibbs Racing and Tony Stewart jointly announced today that they will splitting after the season's final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November to allow Stewart to move to greener pastures in 2009, ideally owning his own Sprint Cup team.

And no, the "greener pastures" line is not a sideswipe at Stewart's -- uh -- robust figure.

From the release:
"We've had a lot of success with Tony in our 12 years here at Joe Gibbs Racing," said J.D. Gibbs, president of JGR. "While this moment is bittersweet, we're parting on good terms and we know that each of us has benefited greatly from the other.

"We grew to two teams in the Sprint Cup Series with Tony and The Home Depot in 1999, and two championships and 32 wins followed. While our time together is coming to an end, we know there's still a lot of racing left this season and we plan to make the most of it. On behalf of everyone at JGR, we're proud of everything we've accomplished together with Tony and we wish him the best in pursuing his dream of NASCAR team ownership."
You know, it's one thing for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to leave a race team, but when Tony Stewart leaves a race team that he's won two championships with, a crew chief in Greg Zippidelli that he is extremely close with, and an owner who has stuck by him through everything, that's a big deal.

Interestingly enough, The Home Depot -- who hasn't exactly had the best year financially and has closed several stores -- commended Tony for being an "ambassador" for the company but said "Details regarding our future plans will be announced at a later date" in the release.

So, that means one of two things in my mind. Either The Home Depot is leaving the sport altogether or is coming with Stewart to his new team, because it sure as heck doesn't sound like a commitment to Joe Gibbs Racing.

The wait shouldn't be too long, however, on what Tony's exact plans on ownership will be, though its highly likely that it will involve Haas-CNC Racing. I'd say expect an announcement by Tony in two weeks at his most favorite place in the world, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In the mean time, Stewart will continue to compete with Gibbs in the remaining Sprint Cup schedule and for two races on the Nationwide Series schedule, including in this weekend's Dollar General 300 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Official: JGR Releases Tony Stewart From '09 originally appeared on Motorsports FanHouse on Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:10:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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]]>Geoffrey MillerWed, 09 Jul 2008 13:10:00 EST