The first business day of 2013 brought some driver and sponsorship news on the Nationwide Series front.
JR Motorsports announced that Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet would split time driving the No. 5 car for the team in 2013 with sponsorship from Great Clips. If the combination of drivers and sponsor sounds familiar, it's because it is. The two drove the Great Clips car for Turner Motorsports last season.
The sponsorship will be for 28 races, with 27 of them for the No. 5 car and Kahne or Sweet.� (Kahne now gets to be one of the few drivers identifiable by a sole number in multiple series.) The other race will be for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88. Regan Smith, who won the final race of the season at Homestead for JRM, will run the No. 7 car full-time. The team is still looking for funding for Cole Whitt, who drove the No. 88 car last year.
You may remember that Danica Patrick drove the No. 7 for JR Motorsports last year. While Patrick is moving to the Sprint Cup Series full-time for Stewart-Haas Racing, she's planning to run 10 Nationwide Series races next year and according to ESPN, those races will come with Turner Motorsports. Similar to JR Motorsports, Turner gets engines and equipment from Hendrick Motorsports, where Stewart-Haas receives its Sprint Cup Series engines and chassis.
