The garage was buzzing this weekend after a week full of big news. While many were speculating on the home of Kasey Kahne in 2011 and the plans of Mark Martin in 2012 and beyond, John Wes Townley continued to be a topic of discussion.
As we told you on twitter over the weekend, rumors continue to run rampant that Townley’s future with Richard Childress Racing is fast coming to an end. Some are even speculating that he could soon end up back at his former home, RAB Racing.
Whatever happens, both RCR and the Townleys are no doubt in a tough spot. No less than millions of dollars and the future of John Wes Townley’s career is on the line.
RCR’s vice president of competition Mike Dillion told NASCAR.com over the weekend that the team is in discussions with Tony Townley over their future with John Wes and Zaxby’s. The rhetoric out of RCR makes me wonder if they aren’t trying to put pressure on the Townleys through Zaxby’s. While it’s true Tony Townley is the co-founder of the company, he has a lot of franchisees and a partner to answer to. If RCR puts Clint Bowyer in the car and he performs well, perhaps even wins a race, it’s going to be a little harder for Tony Townley to pull the company’s money out of the program.
Still I doubt that’s on Townley’s mind. If ever you wanted to find a person fully committed to and confident in John Wes’ talent, Tony is the man to see (and rightfully so being he is a parent). Given what I know about him, I would imagine at this point he is none too happy with the present situation. The money he and Zaxby’s are putting into the #21 team is being spent for a reason; and Clint Bowyer is not that reason.
Something tells me if John Wes leaves RCR it won’t be because he gets fired. RCR is dependent on that money to continue operating their Nationwide program (I would imagine no one around there has the stomach for laying off all those people) and as long as the Townleys are committed they’ll be able to keep it going. It appears though that they are increasingly less keen on letting John Wes run the full season, and that’s definitely going to be a problem for Tony Townley. If John Wes doesn’t make his return soon I don’t expect the Townleys will stick around Richard Childress Racing much longer.
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