Yesterday, SRT Motorsports President and CEO Ralph Gilles announced that the 2012 NASCAR season will be the last for the Dodge brand.

The decision involves both the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the NASCAR Nationwide Series, and will end a nine-year collaboration with Penske Racing.

“We’ve spent an intense five months working to identify and evaluate all options for our future involvement in NASCAR,” said Gilles. “While we were pleased and enthused with the amount of interest from teams and sponsors over that time, in the end, we simply couldn’t develop the right structure.”

Since 2001, Dodge-branded cars have recorded 55 wins in the Sprint Cup Series, and in 2010, Brad Keselowski clinched the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship title behind the wheel of the Penske Racing Dodge.