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Dale Earnhardt Inc., founded by the late seven-time Nascar champion, will merge with Chip Ganassi Racing to field four teams next season in the Sprint Cup Series, the top level of stock-car competition.

The closely held companies didn't disclose financial terms of the agreement in their joint e-mailed statement. Drivers for the team will include New Jersey's Martin Truex Jr., Colombian Formula One winner Juan Pablo Montoya and Aric Almirola.

Details including the team's name and a driver for the fourth car will be announced later, they said. The companies started this season with seven cars between them. DEI drivers Mark Martin and Paul Menard are leaving at the end of 2008, and Ganassi has released driver Reed Sorenson. Plans for DEI's Regan Smith weren't disclosed.

Nascar teams are looking at mergers and other ways to cut costs as the credit crisis in the U.S. erodes consumer and corporate spending. DEI faced 2009 with only Truex's No. 1 Chevrolet fully sponsored. Teams like Petty Enterprises and Bill Davis Racing have been seeking to replace departing sponsors.

``Having a partner like Chip who is heavily involved on the competition side of the business is an ideal situation for DEI,'' Teresa Earnhardt, widow of Dale Earnhardt Sr. and team head since his death in 2001, said in the statement. ``I think this is a case where we are stronger together than we are apart.''

Drivers including Kevin Harvick and stepson Dale Earnhardt Jr. have criticized Earnhardt because she rarely attends races. Last year she hired music industry executive Max Siegel to run day-to-day operations of the business. Ganassi, who owns the reigning IndyCar and Indianapolis 500 teams, is a former driver who rarely misses an event in either series.

Sponsors Conflict

The merger will require one of the teams to end its support contract with their respective manufacturers. General Motors is a long-time DEI backer and the company's operations include a Chevrolet dealership. Ganassi gets backing from the Dodge division of Chrysler Holdings LLC.

Ganassi will lose sponsor Texaco-Havoline next season, leaving Montoya's No. 42 Dodge with partial backing from Mars Inc.'s Wrigley's chewing gum. The company's No. 41 car has full sponsorship from Target Corp. A driver has yet to be named for that car. Bass Pro Shops will continue to sponsor Truex. No sponsor was named for Almirola's No. 8 car, which lost the backing of the U.S. Army to newly formed Stewart-Haas Racing.

The two teams operate four shops near Charlotte, North Carolina. Ganassi's headquarters in Concord includes racing shops, a souvenir store and executive offices. DEI's headquarters in Mooresville houses racing shops, offices and a museum. It also has a satellite racing shop it acquired last year from Ginn Racing and runs an engine-building venture with Richard Childress Racing at another location.

Race-team workers in Mooresville, the base for most teams competing in Nascar's three national series, are bracing for a wave of layoffs after the season-ending race Nov. 16. Ganassi fired about 70 people when it shuttered its No. 40 team in July.

(Source: Bloomberg)