Finch has prospective buyer for Phoenix Racing

UPDATE A source close to the situation told ESPN.com the potential buyer is Harry Scott Jr., the co-owner of Turner Scott Motorsports, which competes in the Nationwide and Truck Series. Finch, 63, said he should know if the deal will go through by July 15. If not, he said the organization will shut down after the July 28 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway due to a lack of funding. "My last race is going to be the Brickyard [400] that I'm going to fund," Finch said Friday. "I've been trying to make this sale happen to keep my employees. I've got some of them jobs with different teams if I shut down. If the guy buys the team, they will be able to stay and go forward racing." Finch has 18 employees in his Spartanburg shop located just over an hour from the NASCAR hub in Charlotte ESPN.

06/28/13 James Finch said Thursday that he expects to announce the sale of #51 Phoenix Racing on July 15. He said the prospective owner passed muster in terms of the most necessary qualification for owning a team that competes in Sprint Cup and Nationwide racing. "He's somebody who's got money," Finch said. Unable to find a long-term sponsor for his racing team the past three years, Finch has been saddled with the exorbitant costs required to drive on a weekly basis. Unwilling to shoulder that burden any longer, he said previously that he intended to race through the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 28 before ceasing operations.

Now he believes he has found a buyer who will take over and keep the team running through the rest of the year and beyond. Finch wouldn't reveal who the potential buyer is, but he did say the prospective owner has not owned a racing team before.

"I'm in negotiations with an individual to buy the team, and if he does that I'll let him finish out the year," Finch said, adding that details of the sale will be reserved until July 15. "He's a qualified buyer, so hopefully we can make everything work. I've got close to 800 starts. That's a lot of weekends, you know what I mean? I'll help (the new owner) get started and stuff like that. I'll go attend some races a little bit, but I'll be out of ownership. I might run a few Nationwide races out of his shop, go play or something. But full time is over for me. We're going to the shop (in Spartanburg, S.C.) this next week and telling the employees, 'Here's the new guy, and this is the plan.'"

The Sprint Cup schedule rolls through Daytona next week for the Coke Zero 400, and Finch said he will have Regan Smith or AJ Allmendinger in the driver's seat for that race. "Regan's concentrating on trying to win the Nationwide championship," Finch said. "If he wants to drive at Daytona, he's been so good the last two (restrictor) plate races I'm going to give him the opportunity. If he wants to concentrate on the Nationwide championship then we will have AJ finish up the next three races." Sun Herald