Updated

On Saturday, Michael Waltrip Racing announced that Elliott Sadler would drive the No. 55 MWR NASCAR Sprint Cup car for five races this season. But Monday afternoon, Sadler told SPEED.com that the deal was off.

Sadler was scheduled to fill in for MWR’s regular driver Mark Martin at both Bristol races, both Martinsville races and the July New Hampshire race. Martin is driving just 25 races this year.

Richard Childress, Sadler’s car owner in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and a longtime Chevrolet loyalist, told Sadler after his victory in the Bashas’s Supermarkets 200 at Phoenix International Raceway that he didn’t want Sadler in Waltrip’s Toyota.

“I was going to drive the 55 car for five races for MWR, but actually, after the race on Saturday, after Victory Lane, Richard and I went to his bus,” Sadler told SPEED.com. “And I think Richard, along with some of the executives that he has, have just decided that it’s probably not in our best interest to do that right now.”

Sadler currently leads the Nationwide points after finishing third at Daytona and winning at Phoenix.

“Everything’s going so well with the Nationwide car, we don’t want any distractions,” Sadler said. “We don’t want anything to take away from that. We just decided that maybe this isn’t the right time to venture out and do other things. Let’s focus on what we’ve got going on in house.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.