Martin Integral In Naming His Successor

It's official.  Kasey's coming to Hendrick Motorsports.

Kasey Kahne will drive the No. 5 car  for HMS in 2012 and Mark Martin will run his final full season in 2011.

The ink on the deal is still wet, but Rick Hendrick told the media today, via  teleconference, that Kahne has been in his sights since Ray Evernham hired the youngster back in the day.

More intriguing is what Hendrick revealed about Martin's role in the deal. Apparently, Martin was key to naming his own succssor.

"Mark came to me a year ago saying that’s the guy you oughta put in the car," Hendrick explained. "It’s been on the radar for a good while."

About a year ago, Martin was also encouraging Kahne to take a serious look at Team Hendrick.

"I talked to Mark Martin and learned a lot about the place from Mark and talked to him about things," Kahne explained. "He had a lot of really good advice."

Kahne's ride for 2011 has yet to be announced.  Hendrick declined to give any specifics today regarding where Kahne will go during that one-year interim.

However, the team owner did say fans will have the answer to this and other questions soon enough.

"I don’t think it's something we've got any deadline on," Hendrick said. "But surely we should have something done in the next 90 days."

Stay tuned ...

Message to Gordon: "No Ray, No Way!"

When NASCAR fans get together, table talk inevitably turns to racing.

Even Thanksgiving dinner is no exception. My own holiday was spent with a group of dear friends, off a red dirt road in the Carolina pines. I was well aware that I was sharing turkey with a group of self-proclaimed NASCAR experts. So I wasn't surprised when the conversation turned from Clemson football and the morning's duck hunt to a little bit of NASCAR speculation.

What did suprise me, was that the hottest topic wasn't Jimmie Johnson's championship feat, the Stewart/Montoya season-ending shootout, nor the latest tribulations of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Instead, the talking points centered around Jeff Gordon's lack of success and the rumor that his former crew chief Ray Evernham wants to re-enter the NASCAR garage.

First, let it be known that nobody wishes Gordon's current man Steve Letarte, any ill will. He's a darn fine crew chief in his own right - and third place in the Chase is nothing to sneeze at. However, when you're talking about the type of chemistry that propelled Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus into the history books at Homestead, then you've got to admit that Gordon and Evernham had it in spades.

Together, the pair won 47 Cup races and three Cup championships in 1995, 1997 and 1998. And though he's had some wins since, Gordon hasn't seen that level of success since Evernham left Hendrick Motorsports in 1999.

In other words, if Gordon seeks to make a late-career championship charge, the message is clear: "No Ray, No Way!" In the view of the biggest Gordon fan at the table, Ray is Jeff's last, best hope to give his teammates at Hendrick Motorsports a run for their money. Letarte isn't going to cut it. And the excitement that an Evernham/Gordon reunion would generate amid racing circles would be pretty fantastic.

Of course right now, a Jeff and Ray redux is merely a Carolina pipe dream--along with Clemson winning the national championship and Strom Thurmond returning to the United States Senate.

But then again... stranger things have happened.