Hendrick to talk options

Rick Hendrick will meet with Brad Keselowski this coming week to discuss their 2010 options. Under consideration is placing the young driver with a team affiliated with Hendrick Motorsports.

Among the possibilities: a third entry at Stewart-Haas Racing, a full-time ride with James Finch's team, or staying put at JR Motorsports but moving that team to the Sprint Cup Series. Keselowski currently drives the No. 88 in the Nationwide Series for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who could move the team up to NASCAR's premier series.

"That's something that Dale and Kelley Earnhardt are looking at," Hendrick said before Sunday's race. "That's a possibility."

After Keselowski drove Finch's car to his first Cup Series victory with a surprise April win at Talladega, he agreed to a period of exclusive negotiations with Hendrick about a long-term contract. Keselowski wants to run in the Cup next year, but NASCAR's four-car limit means Hendrick doesn't have an open seat for 2010.

"We're looking at different options with some of our external situations with other teams, and I told Brad that I want him to have the best opportunity," Hendrick said. "If we can't give it to him, then I want him to have the best. He wants to do something that is somehow associated with our company and we're working on it and hopefully in the next few weeks we'll have something sorted out.

"He'll be running Cup. Whether he'll be running them all or whether he'll be running 75 percent of them or what, I don't know."

JGR expansion

Joe Gibbs Racing will take the summer to decide if it can expand to four teams in 2010.

"We can still plug in a fourth team," team president J.D. Gibbs said. "We're in no hurry. If we have to wait a year, that's fine. You have got to have the right driver, the right core group and the right sponsor. But if that happened, we could do it pretty quick.

"I wouldn't cross it off for next year, but at the same time we're not going to force it."

JGR has been deliberate in its previous expansions and nixed adding a fourth car last year after Tony Stewart left the team. For now, a bigger priority is figuring out how to get its three current teams running consistently.

Gibbs praised rookie Joey Logano for weathering a tough start to the season, then improving steadily in the last six weeks. But a team meeting held earlier this week with Kyle Busch, the crew chiefs and engineers was called to help the organization understand why its cars aren't performing as well as last season.

The Associated Press