A newly resurgent Petty Enterprises announced Thursday that the organization would merge with Yates Racing and form a four-car team that will campaign Fords beginning in 2010.
“This is a pretty big deal for us,” Petty said. “We’re thrilled to partner with Ford. We’ve talked with a lot of folks, but in the end it came down to the success the Gillett’s and I think we can achieve with Ford Racing.”
The former Petty Enterprises merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports late last year. The new organization became Richard Petty Motorsports. The company fields its four cars out of shops in Statesville, North Carolina.
Yates Racing, formerly known as Robert Yates Racing has more than 20 years of racing to its lineage. The team is owned by Doug Yates and Max Jones who jointly took the reins after Doug’s father Robert Yates retired following the 2007 season.
“This plan is clearly in the best interest of the Ford Racing community,” Yates co-owner Doug Yates said. “On a personal level, I am excited about the opportunity to focus my full energy on building Ford horsepower. We look forward to working with Richard Petty Motorsports to produce power second to none.”
For Petty the results of the merger with Gillett-Evernham were fast in coming; Petty visited victory lane for the first time since 1999 when driver Kasey Kahne won at Sonoma in June.
There was another visit this past weekend when Kahne won at Atlanta. The win marked the first time Petty has scored multiple wins in a season since 1983 when they scored three.
Despite his success though, Petty admitted Thursday that the merger with Yates and the switch to Ford was still a work in progress.
“Right now this deal is real new,” Petty said. “There are lots of details still left to be ironed out so we don’t have a lot of answers for anyone right now. We’ll be working on all that in the coming days, weeks and months, but we do intend to have everything in place before the start of next season. I’ve won races with Ford and plan to again.”
Indeed as one of NASCAR’s oldest teams, Petty has campaigned all the American makes of cars over the course of 268 wins, including Ford’s. Most notably Richard Petty ran a Ford Torino for 52 of 54 races in 1969 taking the Ford to victory lane for nine of his 10 wins that year. More recently was in 1984 when Petty’s son Kyle fielded a Ford over the course of an entire season. The team also campaigned Ford’s on a limited basis in 1985.
Once the new merger is complete, Petty will field four drivers with Paul Menard from Yates joining Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and AJ Allmendinger. Reed Sorenson, who currenlty drives the flagship No. 43 Dodge, will be out of a job at the end of this season.
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Comments
It was also during the 1969 season when a little fan dissatisfaction with Petty reared its ugly head.
David Pearson's Ford and Cale Yarborough's Mercury line up on the front row before the start of the Sept. 28 Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville. The annual 500-lapper was run two weeks after the Talladega boycott, and many of the spectators were angered with PDA president Richard Petty for calling the strike. Late in the race, a fan hurled a beer can that struck Petty's windshield. Despite the close call, Petty outran Pearson down the stretch and won the race.
Not sure why you would keep someone like Sadler who has has virtually no success in a number of years. Sorenson, who is not a star, but could be at 23 should be in the mix.
Why would you say "newly resurgent Petty Enterprises" in your commenting on this? Petty Enterprises is LONG gone, and Richard had about as much to do with this deal as I did. Gillette is running the show and using Richard's name. Richard drove Petty Enterprises into the ground with his unwilling attitude to spend money. Unreal how a guy can get so much credit for being a puppet with someone else's money. Do you not remember all the Bud shootouts without the 43 because he wouldn't have any involvement with an alcohol sponsor? Now he relishes over Kasey Kahne's success with Bud like it was his idea all along. The guy has gone against his principles and the media won't say a word because its Richard Petty. I call that chickensh@t journalism, you should be so proud...
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