Jamie Allison, who oversees Ford's motorsports program in North America, was on Sirius Satellite Radio's "Tradin Paint'' show on Monday afternoon and discussed the issue of if Ford ordered its teams not to work with any other manufacturers at Talladega this past weekend in light of Trevor Bayne leaving Jeff Gordon late in that race and Tony Stewart saying he could not work with David Gilliland because of orders.
Here's what Allison said to the question of if he or Ford ordered its teams not to work with anyone else: "We don't have orders per se. That's how we work with these teams. These are independent teams that choose an affiliate with us as a manufacturer. We have a lot of respect and mutual agreements. We discuss many strategies. We don't mandate. We don't issue orders. I can tell you at the start of the Chase, we reached out to all the Ford teams, I personally did, along with my team and basically said, "Hey, thank you for affiliating with Ford Motor Company. We're very proud of everybody. Hey, these are special times for us. If an opportunity presents itself where you can help a Ford teammate, just please be aware and try to help out. It was just an outreach, a consideration, just be aware that we're in the Chase and we're all part of the big Ford family. No orders. None of what you have been reading around this big plan or big orders. It's none of that. I can tell you guys, it's been a very, very tough and long and hard-fought season. It's been on merit. We've earned all the wins. I wish we could count the almost-wins. It's not just in Cup. You look at Nationwide. We have a strong, strong lead with Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.). We've got the manufacturer's championship that we're contending with there. It's a strong, strong year. It's all because of good preparation, good teamwork and a lot of great teams. We just are reaching out and helping .      [ from Jayski.com ]

i read in an earlier post said if your a young driver with half a brain and one flukey win. obviously a reference to bayne. now lets look at this realistically. at daytona he ran up in top ten all day and kept in contention, and yes lots of times with gordons help. and because of that he was hungry enough at the end to want to win. now jump to sunday, same thing, ran good and kept in contention. never mind all the team orders and all that crap, do you not think maybe he was just as hungry for another win and that is the only reason he dropped gordon? and by the way, i have seen this scenario lots of times over the years from other drivers, namely gordon, johnson, earnhardt senior, and the list goes on. same thing there, probably more hungry for the win than any thing to do with team orders.

Is there anyone else that thinks this whole discussion is asinine when referring to the sporting world?  Imagine the following scenario

"We the Calgary Flames are angry at the Vancouver Canucks for starting their backup goalie against the Edmonton Oilers because they promised us they would put in their starter.  Now that Edmonton beat them with their backup, it dropped us two points back of a playoff spot".  That is exactly what we are talking about here!

If you want to win, do it yourself and don't whine if someone else decides not to help you.

Sure...the whole thing is asinine. No question. Thank goodness this type of crap only happens at 2 tracks or they'd have a real problem. (although some argue they already do.)

I don't have a horse in this race, but it looks to me like Bayne got himself in a bad spot to be in. If I'm any judge of character, I'd assume Bayne is sincerely mortified at what he had to do. But that's just me...I don't know Trevor Bayne and don't pretend to know what really happened.

Maybe there were not "team orders" mandated by Ford as per what Duken wrote above....but there's more then one place that an order like that could have come from.

And of course Ford is gonna deny it. Are they gonna say "Well yes, as a matter of fact we DID order all the Ford teams to engage in collusion." ?

I can't believe that NASCAR has allowed the restrictor plate tracks, get to this, it's comical racing, at best. There is no longer one individual car that can win, that's a joke, teams or not. It is long over due for NASCAR to remove the band aid of restrictors plates and come up with a real solution, so racers can race.

Maybe they should just make it a 25 lap shootout, so the other 90% of the drivers will race the whole race, instead of hanging back trying to avoid the big one. Jr was stuck at the back most of the day because he couldn't make a solo run, it's one of 2 tracks where he use to shine.

As for Roush making corporate calls like he did, it's sad that he's chosen to squeeze every ounce of sport from this business. All we need now is the drivers to go on strike like the rest of the pro sports, or should I say businesses.