Marco Andretti to Nextel Cup?

UPDATE This rumor is downgraded to 'false' as we predicted it would be.

Indy Racing League rookie Marco Andretti will be in Kansas City, Kan., this weekend, but he's not going to NASCAR.

As he prepared to head for Kansas Speedway for Sunday's Kansas Lottery Indy 300, the 19-year-old third-generation racer seemed truly puzzled when queried about driving NASCAR stock cars in his future.

Several print media reports and FOX-TV commentators, during the pre-race segment of last Sunday's telecast from Sonoma, Calif., had Marco being a candidate to join Chip Ganassi's Nextel Cup team.

"Absolutely not. No way. No talk about NASCAR with anyone," the youngest Andretti said. "I don't know where that rumor started, but that's a part of our sport."

The Bushkill Township native insisted it was news to him when he received a recent call from his cousin, John Andretti, a NASCAR veteran currently racing in the Busch Series.

"Man, you're actually the third person who told me — next to John," Andretti said Wednesday. "He called me and said, 'Man, why don't you tell me these things?' I told him he just told me for the first time." More at ExpressTimes.com

06/25/06 On the Fox Sports pre-race show at Sonoma, it was mentioned in their news of the week, IRL driver Marco Andretti could be headed to Ganassi Racing as the driver of one of the three cars. We here at AutoRacing1.com predict that will not happen.