Clauson impressing with Ganassi in part-time role

This has not been a good year for Chip Ganassi Racing -- and it's only the halfway point of the NASCAR season.

Thank goodness for Bryan Clauson.

Fast facts

What	Winn-Dixie 250
When	Green, 8:19 p.m. ET Friday
TV	ESPN2, 7 p.m. ET
Radio	MRN (Sirius Ch. 28), 8 p.m. ET

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• By the Numbers: Daytona

During a season that bottomed out Tuesday when Ganassi Racing pulled the plug on one of its three Cup teams because of sponsorship troubles, the teen has been the lone bright spot.

Despite running a part-time schedule in the Nationwide Series, Clauson, 19, leads the Raybestos rookie of The year points standings.

To date, Clauson has been splitting seat-time in the No. 40 Dodge with former Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti, whose struggling Cup team was shut down. How the move will affect Clauson has yet to be determined. In a statement released by the team, Ganassi indicated Franchitti's options could include running the balance of the 2008 Nationwide season in the No. 40 Dodge. Franchitti is second to Clauson in the rookie standings.

For this weekend at least, as the series returns to Daytona International Speedway for Friday's Winn-Dixie 250, Clauson will be back behind the wheel of the 40 for the 13th time this year. He has two top-10 finishes -- at the season-opener at Daytona and last month at Kentucky where he scored a career-best fifth.

Remarkably, Clauson's two best finishes came at tracks he raced on for the first time. In February at Daytona, he qualified and finished sixth and was the highest-finishing Nationwide-only driver.

"It's tough to go to places for the first time, so when you get to come back to a place where you have seen the track, raced before and know the tendencies, the weekend just goes a lot smoother," Clauson said.

Lorin Ranier, Ganassi's director of driver development, signed Clauson in 2005 and also serves as his spotter. Clauson's qualifying run and top-10 finish at Daytona caught him by surprise.

"I was [surprised] because if you talk to the Cup drivers that were in the race, they were talking about how hard it was to drive those cars," Ranier said. "He had a pretty good feel for the draft and the lines and he had never even seen Daytona."

Though long-term plans for Clauson at Ganassi are unclear, Ranier says the team is satisfied with Clauson's adjustment to stock cars and his performance.

"I think he's doing a fine job as a developing teenage driver," Ranier said. "He's only getting to run sporadically. He's running well, showing flashes of brilliance. The talent is there. He just needs to develop and gain the experience."