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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: King, Kyle Haven’t Talked
Richard Petty said he hasn’t spoken to his son Kyle about Kyle’s comments to a Florida newspaper blasting the newly formed Richard Petty Motorsports...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted February 18, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Richard Petty hasn’t spoken to his son Kyle about Kyle’s comments to a Florida newspaper blasting the new Richard Petty Motorsports merger of Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Richard Petty said Tuesday that he hasn’t spoken to his son Kyle about Kyle’s comments to a Florida newspaper blasting the new Richard Petty Motorsports effort that resulted in the merger of Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises.

Last year, GEM ran a three-car team, while PE had two cars. This year, RPM has four cars, using two car numbers from GEM, the 9 and 19, and two from PE, the 43 and 44. The 44, which AJ Allmendinger drove to a third-place finish in the Daytona 500, has an eight-race sponsorship deal from Valvoline, but no sponsorship beyond that and may not race the full season if additional funding isn’t secured. And it’s the use of the No. 44 that has Kyle Petty furious.

Kyle was incensed that at Daytona, Allmendinger’s car carried his old number and the paint scheme he had when he won the ARCA 200 at Daytona in 1979, when he was just 18 years old. At the same time, Kyle was not part of the GEM-PE negotiations and was not offered a spot with the new organization. In fact, Kyle was told last June, when Richard sold majority ownership of PE to investment banking firm Boston Ventures, that Kyle would not be part of the team’s plans going forward.

“I was crushed. I was hurt and I'm not going to get over it for a while,” Petty told the St. Petersburg Times. “And that's a personal thing. That's me. That's not … anything to do with anything else. That was my paint job and my car and my number and my stuff from my first win. Not for Petty Enterprises or GEM or whoever that is.”

The elder Petty acknowledged that his son was angry about how things have transpired. “It kind of upset him because that’s where he started,” Richard said of Kyle. “He started with the 44 car at Daytona and was lucky enough to win the race. When we did our deal with Boston Ventures, we never had a place for Kyle at Petty Enterprises. He sort of got out of the loop. When he got out of the loop, he’s been doing his own thing … he run the 24 (Rolex 24) and doing some TV.”

In fact, Richard said, the two have not met face to face to talk things out. “I’ve not seen him since Christmas,” Richard said. “He’s been so busy, I’ve been so busy. He got snow-bound in Pittsburgh for a few days one time. We just really never have gotten together. I’ve really not talked to him. I spoke to him a couple of times on the phone. You can’t get much done on the phone. He talked to his mother.”

And the seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion and seven-time Daytona 500 winner knows there are fences to mend with Kyle. “He was really crushed that we didn’t include him in that part of it, and I can understand that,” Richard said. “We were so busy trying to get our end of the deal done and make it work with a new team that it fell through the crack and I’m sorry that it did.”

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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