Sadler, the current N’wide points leader, drives for Richard Childress Racing, which took over Kevin Harvick’s Kevin Harvick Inc team when that team shut down at the end of last season.

Sadler said earlier this year he wouldn’t be back in the No. 2 Chevy.

He has also said he would also like to get back into the Sprint Cup Series, where he has three wins, as soon as possible.

Rumor has it that Sadler is currently considering three teams, one of which is JGR. The JGR deal is said to be for a full time ride in 2013, with the possibility of a full time Sprint Cup ride in 2014, if sponsorship can be found.

Related Stories

• Sadler Not Returning To RCR In 2013
• Kevin Harvick Inc To Cease Operations At Season’s End

Sadler will also drive for Kevin Harvick Inc/RCR in the Nationwide Series in the No. 2 Chevy.

Brendan Gaughan will take over driving duties of the No. 33 Cup Chevy the following week at Phoenix International Raceway, and will drive until the fifth race of the season at Auto Club Speedway.

The No. 33 is locked into the first five races of 2012 because the team finished 13th in points last season, while Clint Bowyer was the driver. Bowyer left in the offseason to join Michael Waltrip Racing.

No rookie has been as impressive as Nelson Piquet Jr. During the 2011 season, Piquet has earned four Top 5 finishes (all at 1.5-mile racetracks) and eight Top 10′s. He currently sits in 11th position in points, 18 points out of the Top 10.

Piquet has struggled to find consistency this season, having five DNF’s during his rookie campaign.

With the 2011 season winding down, Piquet is facing uncertainty as we approach 2012. Piquet’s owner, Kevin Harvick, made an announcement in early September that Kevin Harvick Incorporated would shut down at the end of the season. KHI sold a majority of it’s truck team to owner Eddie Sharp. There is a small chance he could end up at ESR in 2012.

Piquet has said his future is open to the highest bidder. “It’s down to Turner,  Penske, and Kyle Busch Motorsports,” he said. KBM is expanding their operation into the Nationwide Series in 2012, but they will keep their truck team intact in 2012.

Penske Racing has announced they will more than likely field a full-time effort in the Nationwide Series for Sam Hornish Jr. They will also continue to run the No. 22 with Brad Keselowski in a majority of the races.

Turner Motorsports has announced they will run three full-time NNS programs in 2012, with two of the teams having a different rotation of drivers. TMS also plans to run at least two full-time trucks in the CWTS in 2012. They may field a third truck is if Ricky Carmichael stays in the series.

Unlike most drivers shopping around for a ride during the silly season, Piquet seems to hold his destiny in his hands. Piquet brought sponsorship from Qualcomm, Bozzano, Jontex, Autotrac, and Tagg to almost every race this year on his No. 8 KHI owned truck and has funding in place for a ride next season.

Piquet is most notably known for deliberately crashing at the Singapore Grand Prix in 2008 to help his teammate, Fernando Alonso win the race. The scandal has become one of the most important in F1 history. In December 2010, Piquet won a libel case in the higher court against the Renault.

ESR recently switched from Toyota to Chevrolet, and will run the nos. 8 and 33 trucks next season, with KHI retaining small interest in the teams so that ESR can use the owner’s points.

Drivers for the team are expected to be announced at a later date. KHI drivers Ron Hornaday and Nelson Piquet Jr are both said to be looking for 2012 rides. Piquet has his own funding and sponsors.

In the deal, KHI will retain control of the owner’s points of the no. 2 truck.

KHI’s Camping World Truck Series program will close, leaving Ron Hornaday Jr, a four-time CWTS champion (two of which came with KHI in the last four seasons) without a ride.

Harvick said:

It has been a great run. Obviously, one of the hardest conversations I had to have was with Ron [Hornaday], telling him where everything was going and he was a big part of helping us to get to the point that we are at today. It is fun, don’t get me wrong, it is fun to go out and win Truck races and be a part of it. We have been able to win championships, and I think that’s one of the great things about where we are at with the decision. It is not like we are struggling to get by on no sponsorship or we are not winning. We are winning races, we have got the sponsorship, we have done the things right to keep the things on the racetrack and (keep) it going to be successful at the time we moved on.

He added:

We have scrimped and scraped and got the sponsorship and things that you need. GM (General Motors) has been a great supporter of everything that we’ve done. But from a business standpoint, sometimes you just have to make the decisions as to what you want to do, and for us it just didn’t make sense. I think when you look at the expectations that we put on the company to race, it obviously — us, RCR — costs us more to race the vehicles than probably some of the other people with no overhead.  … There [were] no financial issues; we were making it all work. But, sometimes you just feel like you have got to get something out of it. We were winning races and loved to be a part of that; but, in the end, it’s business.

This move should allow Harvick to focus on winning the Sprint Cup championship without what some would call a distraction of being an owner of a race team.

Harvick said:

Being involved with everything at RCR will allow me to spend more time with my Cup team. (It) takes an extreme amount of pressure off of me as a driver and an owner. I think when you look at the personal time that we get back, from (team co-owner and wife) DeLana and my standpoint, it’s just a tremendous amount of time. There’s way more positives to the whole thing than there are negatives, and we’re really looking forward to experiencing all those things.

Ron Hornaday Jr. stole a win with fuel-mileage strategy in the Good Sam Club 200, beating teammate-for-a day Clint Bowyer to the finish line by 1.596 seconds to win his second race of the season and the 49th of his career.

The four-time series champion stopped for fuel on Lap 75 of 130 and immediately began saving gas. Bowyer, who was the class of the field, had to stop for fuel on Lap 112. Kyle Busch ran third, followed by Blake Feese and Ryan Newman. Austin Dillon, Matt Crafton, polesitter Ricky Carmichael, Todd Bodine and James Buescher rounded out the top 10.

KHI won its fourth straight truck race. In the previous three, owner Kevin Harvick took the checkered flag in the No. 2 Chevy.

Hornaday won the race despite damaging the No. 2 soon after the race began.

“At the start of the race somebody checked up, and I went to the right and I got the front fender in,” said Hornaday, who entered the race an uncharacteristic ninth in the series standings. “We just kept on taping it up.

“I told them (the crew), ‘We don’t have the best truck, but we can win by fuel mileage,’ and (crew chief) Jeff (Hensley) made that call right there. … I’ll take ’em any way I can get ’em. That’s cool. Everything’s gone wrong the whole year, so something’s got to go right at least once.”

No other truck in the field was a match for Bowyer’s Chevrolet. By the time the first caution flag flew on Lap 19, after the engine in Cole Whitt’s No. 60 Chevy blew, Bowyer had built a lead of 4.869 seconds.

A side-by-side battle against Busch punctuated the middle portion of the event and carried through a cascade of three cautions in the space of 19 laps. After the third of the three yellows, for Tim Peters’ spin in Turn 4 on Lap 77, Bowyer again pulled away after a restart on Lap 82.

By Lap 110, his lead over Busch had grown to 6.239 seconds, with Newman almost seven seconds back in third. Busch brought his No. 18 Toyota to the pits for fuel and ties on Lap 111, with Bowyer following on Lap 112 to offset any advantage Busch might have gained on new tires.

Though Bowyer led 97 laps, he came about one lap short as he pursued Hornaday after the final pit stop.

“I got beat by a guy who snookered me,” Bowyer said. “He played a better poker hand than I did.”

Johnny Sauter, the points leader entering the race, had a succession of problems that started with side-to-side contact with the No. 8 of Nelson Piquet Jr. Sauter blew a left rear tire and smacked the Turn 2 wall on Lap 58, causing the third caution.

Sauter finished 29th, 22 laps down and handed the series lead to Buescher, whose margin over Sauter is 12 points. Hornaday climbed to fifth in points, 48 behind Buescher.

The team also announced via its Facebook page that it has secured sponsorship for the AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway and the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.

Kevin Harvick Inc’s No. 33 truck was found to be in violation of Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-J (any determination by NASCAR officials that the race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR rules) and 20B-10.6-B (unapproved final drive (rear end) gear ratio) of the truck series rule book.

Crew chief Jeff Hensley has been fined $10,000, while team owner DeLana Harvick has been penalized with the loss of 25 owner points and driver Ron Hornaday Jr. has been penalized with the loss of 25 driver points.

Richard Childress Racing’s No. 3 truck was found to be in violation of Sections 12-1, 12-4-J and 20B-10.4-K (shifter lever was not metal). Crew chief Gary Stockman has been fined $1,000.

KHI co-owner Kevin Harvick said:

This is a very unique opportunity to have a driver like Nelson be a part of KHI. In five starts in the Truck series this season, he not only gained valuable seat time but proved himself by getting some solid finishes. We are excited to have Nelson as a part of our Truck series program as he takes another step forward in his career.

Piquet added:

I am very excited to join KHI and to drive in the Truck series. I look forward to combining what I have learned this year from running five races in the series with the professionalism and experience of the KHI organization.

Piquet made his CWTS debut last season in the NextEra Energy Resources 250 at Daytona International Speedway. He finished sixth driving for Red Horse Racing. With that finish he became the first Brazilian driver to earn a top 10 in series history.

He went on to drive four races in Billy Ballew Motorsports’ No. 15 Toyota. He finished 16th in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, eighth in the WinStar World Casino 400k at Texas Motor Speedway, 10th in the VFW 200 at Michigan International Speedway, and 20th in the Smith’s Food & Drug Stores 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Meanwhile, KHI also recently signed Jeff Hensley, Red Horse Racing crew chief of driver Timothy Peters, to serve in the same role for the No. 33, driven by four-time Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday. Former KHI crew chief Butch Hylton signed with RHR to serve as crew chief for Peters.

Harvick said:

We are proud to welcome Jeff to KHI and to be able to pair him with Ron Hornaday. Jeff brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge, which we think will be beneficial to not only the No. 33 team and Ron but the organization as a whole.

Hensley added:

I am thrilled to be a part of KHI and really excited to get to work. Ron is a tough competitor and we have a record fifth career championship that we are focused on for 2011.

KHI recently announced that Rheem Manufacturing extended its relationship with KHI, and that Menards signed a deal with KHI to sponsor the No. 33 next season. Under the terms of the deals, Rheem will appear on the car for 22 races, while Menards will appear on the car for 12 races.

At this time, drivers Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard, and Austin Dillon are slated to drive the No. 33 next season. So, it is likely that Sadler will drive a second KHI Chevy next season, but that is purely speculation at this point.

Sadler competed for KHI, which recently announced it would merge its Nationwide Series program with Richard Childress Racing’s N’wide program, earler this season, and won a Camping World Truck Series race at Pocono with the team.