Nascar’s King Shows Once More He’s A Survivor

Much has changed since the sport of NASCAR was formed in 1947: the cars, the drivers, the tracks, and the teams. Dozens of teams have come and gone, some with legendary racers at the helm such as A.J. Foyt, Bill Elliott, Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Sr.

There has been one team however, led by a legendary racer, that’s been almost a constant presence in NASCAR since it was formed in 1949, only two years removed from the formation of NASCAR itself.

Many NASCAR weekends fans are thrilled to see a tall lanky figure strolling around the garage his face partially hidden by cowboy hat, and sunglasses, smiling beneath a mustache. He still walks with a hint of a swagger that belies his 84 years. It’s a swagger that can only come from winning 200 Cup races in NASCAR and being the first driver to win seven championships. They don’t call him “The King” for nothing.

Richard Petty will still gladly sign an autograph or pose for a picture if you ask him to. All while smiling. When it’s time to race however, he can be found with the team, his team. Sure, it may have merged and undergone many changes, but for nearly as long as NASCAR has been in existence a team with a Petty name has been on the track. That’s because Richard Petty, and his team are survivors.

Petty Enterprises began as Lee Petty Engineering, a team based in the Petty hometown of Level Cross, North Carolina. Lee Petty founded the team with his sons Richard and Maurice. Lee won the team’s first race in 1950 and it would go on to tally 268 wins in NASCAR’s top tier Cup series; a record that stood for an incredible 61 years until just last season when Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson scored that team’s 269^th win at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Most of the wins for Petty Enterprises however came from Richard who raced from 1959-1992.

Lee ran the team during its glory years, a time that included Richard leaving for another team in 1984 and 85. Richard would return and retire from driving in 1992. Lee Petty passed away in 2000.

Richard became the face, and leader of the team his father started, but they never found the same sort of success of those glory years scoring only three wins scattered among two different drivers after Richard’s return in 1986 (Petty won his last race in 1984 driving for owner Mike Curb).

By 2008 the sagging economy was taking a toll on NASCAR, and its teams. The famous Petty Enterprises wasn’t immune and late that year rumors flew that the team may soon have to fold. The team however found a lifeline merging with Evernham Motorsports in 2009 and becoming Richard Petty Motorsports.

That same year Evernham became Gillett Evernham Motorsports with American entrepreneur George Gillett buying a controlling interest. That ended in 2010 and an investment group that included Medallion Financial Corp. and Richard Petty took over what was left of Richard Petty Motorsports.

By 2014 Richard Petty Motorsports was a one car team. But, in the years since 2010 the team has only scored five wins. Up and coming star Bubba Wallace was signed to drive the famous No. 43 starting in 2017. Wallace is currently the only Black driver in NASCAR’s Cup series and his move to Petty helped gain the team much needed sponsorship.

It seems however that even that new infusion wasn’t enough.

Wallace left the Petty at the end of the 2020 season signing with newly formed 23XI Racing founded and co-owned by Denny Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan for 2021, despite being offered partial ownership of the team. Not only did Wallace leave, but many of his sponsors followed him.

Erik Jones took over the No. 43 for 2021. And while he did score 6 top 10 finishes this past year, the two-time winner in the Cup series had an otherwise unremarkable season.

Most businesses that are not public don’t want to air their ‘dirty laundry’ to the world. The same was true for the Petty team. It may never be known what the financial situation was for Petty in the waning months of 2021. But with the loss of Wallace, and the lack of performance from Jones it should have been no surprise when an announcement was made on December 1. Yet, surprising.

Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. has made his fortune in the commercial airline market. He had founded WestAir, was one of the founders of ValuJet and is currently the CEO and Chairman of Allegiant Air, an airline he purchased when it went bankrupt in 2000.

Gallagher formed Gallagher Motorsports in 2011 a team that would morph into GMS Racing competing in the lower tier ARCA, Truck and Xfinity series. In June this year, Gallagher announced that the team would expand into NASCAR’s top-tier Cup series starting in 2022. The driver would be Ty Dillon in the No. 94 Chevrolet.

What changed from that day in June to December may never be known publicly; but on December 1, Richard Petty and Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. held a press conference to announce the formation of Petty GMS Motorsports. Gallagher purchased a majority interest in the former Richard Petty Motorsports for a reported US$19 million. Dillon will now drive the No. 42, a number long campaigned by the Petty teams, while Jones will remain in the iconic No. 43 (the famous number Richard raced) for 2022.

Whether Richard Petty Motorsports may have been in financial straits, perhaps on the brink of folding yet again, or not, the team is being reborn once more, and Richard Petty has survived to race another day.

“I guess there’s been a Petty in racing ever since the first Cup flag,” Petty said. “We still want to continue that.”

“As far as us being able to do this over the years, we’ve been up down all in between and the last couple, the last few years, we’ve been kind of on the wrong end of the stick, I guess.”

Petty said the new Next Gen car which will make its debut in the series in 2022 factored into the decision:

“We said, ‘okay, we gotta look around and get somebody that’s really interested in racing like we are.’”

The idea for the merger was born.

“Hey, these guys have come into NASCAR, even though it’s Truck series, and been able to win championships,” Petty said.

“We want somebody that wants to win,” he added. “Some of our partners before have been just investors, so a lot of times it didn’t work. We wanted to work with somebody that knew about racing, wanted to race, wanted to be a winner, wanted to spend the money in the right place.”

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“It took us a little while to make it all work out, but it looks like from our standpoint, our family standpoint, to be able to join two operations; he wins on one scale, we win on another we put it all together and all of us win together.”

Perhaps part of Petty’s longevity in the sport is his ability to adapt. And that seems evident in Petty’s decision.

“It’s one of those deals where I think that as time changes, I have to change, NASCAR changes,” Petty said. “So, it’s a good time to bring in a new partner.”

Petty wants the team to get back to the days when just about everything for the racecar was built in house. For the last several years Petty’s team has purchased and leased equipment from other teams. With the Next Gen car, and the new partnership, everything but the engines will be built by the team.

 “You look at it from a standpoint that we’ve got a foundation now before really we were just kind of floundering around, okay,” Petty said. “Because we were depending on other people’s equipment.”

“Being the new car comes out, it’s kind of a deal now that everybody’s starting out on an even keel. So from that standpoint it was the timing was perfect for me. And hopefully it was perfect for them because they wanted to get involved, I wanted to get more involved, and it just happened to come about. “

Petty is ready to hit the track next season and seems more energized that he’s been in quite some time.

“Oh yeah. You know, the idea now is if we don’t get it done, it’s going to be my fault,” he said laughing. “But okay, or our fault together. Before it was a lot of times our fault when things didn’t go, right, you can always blame the supplier or, you know, the stuff didn’t get there in time or, you know, whatever. Now there’s gonna be no excuses we’re gonna have to produce. And I like that part.”

So come next season, when Covid allows, fans will still be able to see a tall lanky figure strolling around the garage smiling, ready to sign autographs and take pictures. And when it’s time to race, he will be found with the team, his team. Because the Petty name will still be there, as it has nearly from the start. And Richard Petty will show once again that he is not just a legend in the sport, but a survivor.