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CUP: Petty Still Searching
Written by: Tom Jensen   
11/13/2008
Coral Gables, Florida
 
Richard Petty has 192 of his 200 wins including seven NASCAR Cup Championships in the #43 - Lee Petty has one win. (Sam Greenwood/Getty Images Photo) ยป More Photos

The nation’s economic woes continue to reverberate through the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage, affecting some of the sport’s biggest names.

On Wednesday, Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates announced a merger that will result in a team that fields a maximum of four cars in 2009 vs. the seven that they collectively started 2008 with. Also cutting back is Furniture Row Racing, which plans on running only 12 races next year instead of the 38 it entered this season.

Seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Richard Petty confirmed Thursday that Petty Enterprises is still beating the bushes for sponsors for its Nos. 43 and 45 Dodge Chargers, which next year will be driven by Bobby Labonte and Chad McCumbee, respectively.

“We’re still working on it,” Petty said Thursday, following the 2008 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship contenders’ press conference in Coral Gables, Fla.

Petty, who along with the late Dale Earnhardt is arguably the most iconic figure in NASCAR history, said he’s personally continuing to pitch companies on sponsorship as is Labonte, who owns his own marketing agency, Breaking Limits, LLC. “Bobby’s out working, I’m working,” Petty said Thursday. “If I wasn’t talking to y’all, I’d be out working on trying to get sponsorship. So we’re still working on it.”

One thing not in the cards for Petty Enterprises is a merger with another team, said Petty, who earlier this year sold majority ownership in the team to investment banking firm Boston Ventures. “We’ve talked to everybody about everything that could be talked about and we’re still standing here independent,” Petty said when asked about a possible merger. “We didn’t want to take on anybody else’s baggage. We had enough of our own.”

The lack of sponsorship is a major worry, the seven-time Sprint Cup Champion admitted Thursday. “I’m concerned about Richard Petty’s future,” he said. “It starts here. And Petty Enterprises’s future and everybody’s future. Because right now, has everything bottomed out? We don’t know how far down we’ll go. … We’re all in this together, whether we like it or not. Racing’s not going to survive without the economy surviving or vice versa.”

Petty Enterprises is one of a long list of teams still searching for full or partial
2009 sponsorship, a list that includes Bill Davis Racing, Hall of Fame Racing, Wood Brothers Racing, Yates Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing, Robby Gordon Motorsports and Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France earlier this week said NASCAR realized many of its Sprint Cup teams were in serious financial trouble but that it was up to the teams to find sponsors and that NASCAR would not and could not provide a financial “safety net” for the teams. One suggestion France proffered was for those team without sponsorship to improve their on-track performance to make themselves more attractive to sponsors.

“For the various teams to do better, the economy certainly plays in a role that is out of their control. What is in their control is to perform better,” France said on Tuesday. “They're trying to do that. By talking to each and every one of them who are having sponsorship difficulties, they acknowledge it's two-front. It is definitely the economy. There are not as many companies who are putting big marketing bets down today as there were 12 months ago. And then most of them would say, ‘Hey, I've got to get my performance up to make myself more attractive.’ So it's really those two things that are in play.”

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 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


Attention NASCAR Fans! SPEED™ will kick off the Homestead weekend finale with nearly 30 hours of original programming starting with live coverage of Thursday’s Sprint Cup Championship Press Conference at 1:00 pm Eastern. Click here for What to Watch on SPEED at Homestead
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