Written by:
Wendy Venturini
06/30/2008
Loudon, New Hampshire
The King Richard Petty on 'Real Deal' with Wendy Venturini. (Image: SPEED)
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SPEED’s Wendy Venturini with David Zucker, the new CEO at Petty Enterprises and the 'King' Richard Petty on this week’s edition of 'Real Deal' from New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Wendy Venturini: We heard Bobby Labonte talk about David Zucker. For this week's Real Deal we decided to sit down with the man. A lot of people don’t know who David Zucker is but now that he is involved full time in NASCAR and with petty enterprises we also hear from the king. Now, keep in mind. Petty Enterprises has 268 wins in NASCAR sprint cup series, but they have not won in over nine years. Is this the golden ticket to get back to victory lane? Here is the real deal to find out if it will help.
Announcer: "Big news out of the Petty camp today as they have been acquired by equity firm Boston Ventures. What it means for this once dominant team who has raced in the sport since 1949?"
Wendy Venturini: What does this mean taking on Boston Ventures, was it a merger, an investor or buyout, what would you call it?
Richard Petty: Somewhere in between. A little bit of everything, really. Now we have been thinking about this for the last four or five years so we settled on Boston Ventures, because they were a sort of in between. Big enough to be big, but small enough to know we’re here.
Wendy Venturini: When I look at your resume you have held some very prominent positions in a lot of big name companies and you have been successful at all of them. What you can bring from your experience from those companies that will play into the Petty family legacy?
David Zucker (New CEO, Petty Enterprises): Well, I have been around sports; I have been in sports my whole career at ESPN for of course eight years. Sort of in the marketing and selling side, technology, this is of course a technology play with the investment we're going to make in the cars, and getting the cars better and more competitive. In terms of the people and building the organization that way so I have a lot of experience with running companies, and this is a family company.
Announcer: Bobby Labonte is currently running in the eighth position, having a great run today. You know he is really trying to get petty enterprises back into victory lane. It is a place they have not been since 1999."
Wendy Venturini: Why do it now at this time? Were you getting to the point where you guys had to close the door?
Richard Petty: No, not really, As far as that goes but for us to be competitive we have, we have been real fortunate over the years to have enough money, sponsorship for the racecar but we could not expand as other teams were doing with the technology, the engineers, the equipment, if you stay the same you get behind. We were staying the same because we didn’t have influence of outside help to go to a bigger world. It was run as a family deal and the family ran out of connections I guess, so we had to go get some connections.
