Petty Enterprises

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Petty Enterprises was a NASCAR racing team based in Randleman, North Carolina. The team was owned by Richard Petty, his son Kyle Petty, and Boston Ventures. At the time of its folding the team operated the #43 and #45 Dodge Chargers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Petty Enterprises ran from 1949 until 2008. The team closed shop in January 2009 and merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports after sponsorship could not be found for any of the cars in the Petty stable; the merged team took the name Richard Petty Motorsports, adopting a logo similar to that of Petty Enterprises' logo.

[edit] Car #43 History

Arguably one of the most recognizable numbers in motorsports, the 43 team debuted in 1949, when Lee Petty formed Lee Petty Engineering and the NASCAR Grand National Division #42. The team's first win came that year in Lee's 5th start at Heidelberg Raceway, with Petty and the team finishing 2nd in points that season. Petty won one race in each of the years 1950 and 1951, before collecting three victories in 1952. 1953 saw the team expand to a multi-car team for the first time, fielding a Plymouth for Jimmie Lewallen at Palm Beach Speedway, who finished 2nd to Petty. Lee grabbed five wins that season and finished second in points before winning the championship in 1954. He followed that with six wins the next season and two more the following year, making him one of the most dominating drivers in the series at that time. In 1957, Petty won 4 races as the team began running additional teams. Tiny Lund, Bill Mutz, and Ralph Earnhardt all ran races with the team, before Bobby Myers was killed in an accident at Darlington Raceway.

[edit] Glory Years

Petty's car used for his 1979 Daytona 500 win, on display at Daytona USA in January 2001

From 1954 to 1979, Petty Enterprises won 10 championships in NASCAR's premier series. Three of those championships came with Lee Petty driving the #42, and a record seven championships came with Richard Petty driving the #43. The car pictured is a 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Show Car prepared by Petty Enterprises to commemorate Richard's 1979 Championship. The car that Richard drove to his 6th Daytona 500 win was similar but with no stripes or sponsor logos on the top half of the car.

[edit] Dark Years

From 1980 to 1984, Richard Petty won several races which brought his career total to 200 NASCAR wins. Unfortunately, these were his last wins. At the end of the 1983 season, Petty announced he was leaving Petty Enterprises to drive for Mike Curb.

Following the 1985 season, Petty returned to the family operation, but failed to win another race before he retired in 1992. After his retirement, Rick Wilson took over the renumbered #44 car, but found little success. The car number was changed back to #43, and Busch Series Rookie of the Year Bobby Hamilton was hired in 1995, and he brought the team its first win since 1984 at Phoenix International Raceway. Hamilton won again at Rockingham in 1997, but left at season's end to tend to his own race team in the newly formed Craftsman Truck Series. In 1998, journeyman John Andretti was hired, and he gave the team another win at Martinsville, holding off Jeff Burton. (This would end up being the final win for Petty Enterprises.) Andretti would drive for the team until 2003, with little success other than a second place finish at Bristol. Despite a 2001 sponsor change to General Mills, Andretti was released in favor Brazilian driver Christian Fittipaldi, who struggled in his ride and was released. Andretti came back to the team for a few races before Jeff Green, recently released from Richard Childress Racing, signed on with the team for the rest of the season and all of 2004 and 2005. However, success was minimal and Green was released. In 2006, the team brought on not only 2000 Winston Cup champion Bobby Labonte, but also former Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Robbie Loomis. Many analysts saw this combination as the key to putting Petty Enterprises back into victory lane. The team's first year together showed this, as Bobby finished 21st in the points. For 2007, Bobby returned to the team, which resulted in further improvement to 18th in points. In 2008, Labonte fell back to 21st, but posted two top 10 finishes. Labonte left the team before the 2009 season, leaving the car with no driver or sponsor for 2009.

The team's merger with Gillett Evernham Motorsports moved the #43 over to that team, with Reed Sorenson driving and the Air Force sponsoring.

[1]. When the 43 car entered the RPM group, Reed Sorenson was named the driver. The 43 ran multiple sponsorships from McDonald's, Valvoline, the United States Air Force, Super 8, Reynolds Wrap, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Charter Communications, Auto Value Bumper to Bumper, Liberty Medical, and Siemens, but only had one top-ten finish; a ninth at the rained-shortened Daytona 500, and Sorenson was let go at the end of the season. Current RPM driver A.J. Allmendinger will drive the #43 Best Buy Ford in 2010.

[edit] Car #44/#45 History

The 44 car in 1997

The #45 was not always part of Petty Enterprises. The car actually started out as the #44 with PE2 which was formed by Kyle Petty in 1997, when he was unable to drive for Petty Enterprises. Sponsored by Hot Wheels, Kyle would not find success running his own operation. In 2000, Kyle merged PE2 into Petty Enterprises. Kyle would be sponsored by Sprint, now running the #45 in honor of his son Adam who was killed during Busch Series practice at New Hampshire International Speedway. From 2003 to 2005, Kyle would pick up Georgia-Pacific and Brawny as his sponsors (the two moving over from the #44 team), but was still unable to bring Petty Enterprises back to its former days. With the addition of both Bobby Labonte and Robbie Loomis in 2006, as well as sponsors Wells Fargo and National Tire & Battery, Petty improved his position to 34th in the points. For 2007, with the passing of Benny Parsons, Kyle would join TNT for six races, dubbed their "Summer Series". During this time, John Andretti returned to the team for four races, and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Chad McCumbee made his debut at Pocono Raceway. Before his stint in the booth for TNT, Petty had some significant on-track success, finishing 3rd in the Coca-Cola 600, his first top-5 Cup finish since 1997. After the Centurion Boats at the Glen, Kyle injured his hand in the team's hauler due to punching a desk. Petty would sit out two races while Kenny Wallace and McCumbee filled in. The #45 team finished 35th in the 2007 owners points. [2] Kyle Petty in an interview with nascar.com said "I no longer work for the team" when referring to Petty Enterprises.

The #44 returned as a Dodge team in 2001 with sponsorship from Georgia-Pacific and Buckshot Jones driving. In his first year driving the car Jones finished 41st in points, failing to qualify six times and not recording a single top ten finish. Jones returned in 2002 but again struggled, and was released approximately mid-season. Petty Enterprises hired several substitute drivers including Jerry Nadeau, who nearly led the team to victory at Sonoma in June, and Greg Biffle, who ran the last three races.

After being used sparingly over the next season recent Petty signee Christian Fittipaldi took over the car for 2004, but was released.

In 2009, Petty said the #44 would return with McCumbee, but McCumbee said "the plans are up in the air" due to lack of funding. With the recent merger with Gillett Evernham Motorsports, those plans have been completely scrapped and McCumbee is without a ride for 2009. The #44 will instead be taking the place for the #10 at Richard Petty Motorsports, but in a part-time capacity with A. J. Allmendinger driving.

[edit] Relocation

Late in the 2007 season, Petty Enterprises moved its shop into the old Robert Yates Racing facility in Mooresville, North Carolina. It would be the first time since the inception of the company that it wouldn't be located in Level Cross, North Carolina. PEI believes that this is necessary to move forward with the team. Richard Petty said , "It's kind of hard for us and the people in the community to accept maybe we're not there anymore. We just feel for us to move forward and keep up with where NASCAR is going, we just felt we had to try to go somewhere else." [3]

[edit] Petty Blue

Richard Petty's "Petty Blue" 1970 Plymouth Superbird on display

One of the most distinctive features of the #43 car is its color. Petty Blue, as it's called, was created by the Petty Family. According to Richard, the color was created by accident when they didn't have enough white or dark blue paint to cover the entire car. The resulting mix of white and blue proved to be very popular and remains on the #43 car to this day. [4] Rumors state that Richard Petty would not allow STP to sponsor his car unless he could keep it painted blue. A compromise was reached to paint the car half Petty Blue and half STP Red. Thus was born one of the most famous paint schemes in racing history.

[edit] History of Drivers

[edit] #1 History

[edit] #2 History

[edit] #7 History

[edit] #11 History

[edit] #38 History

[edit] #40 History

[edit] #41 History

[edit] #42 History

Lee Petty's #42

[edit] #43 History

John Andretti on pit road before qualifying, for the June Pocono Race 1998 #43 car

Bobby Labonte's 2007 #43 car

[edit] #44 History

[edit] #45 History

The #45 car

[edit] #46 History

[edit] #88/188 History

^[1]

[edit] Boston Ventures

In 2008, Boston Ventures invested into Petty Enterprises and Bobby Labonte signed a four-year extension to drive the #43 Dodge for the Pettys. General Mills will leave the #43 after the 2008 season and go to Richard Childress Racing's fourth Cup car. Boston Ventures owns investments in companies such as Six Flags. Rumors surfaced in early December 2008 that Petty Enterprises may cease operations and liquidate its assets. In January 2009, Petty Enterprises merged with Gillette Evernham Motorsports and the #43 car was absorbed into the team. Reed Sorenson will drive the #43 car in 2009^[2]. Boston Ventures was not able to secure sponsorship for either car, so they decided to liquidate the assets of the race team to pay off the loans taken out to purchase the team. Boston Ventures owns the legal rights to the Petty Enterprises name currently. As of January, the only employees left are Robbie Loomis and the King Richard Petty himself. CEO David F. Zucker has been reassigned to the Richard Petty Driving Experience, which Boston Ventures also controls.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site
• All-time statistics at racing-reference.info