Mammoth Blog

With difficult economic times facing the country and with the nation's Big Three automakers begging for handouts from Congress, many NASCAR teams find themselves in their own financial messes.

The most legendary team in the history of NASCAR, Petty Enterprises, finds itself on the verge of a possible merger with Gillett-Evernham Motorsports, this coming on the heels of a merger earlier in the season with the Boston Ventures investment firm. The earlier merger was supposed to help return Petty Enterprises to the prominence experienced by the team in its heyday, but such has not been the case.

Richard Petty sold the majority interest to the company but Petty Enterprises retained its current name. If Petty merges again with GEM the name will more than likely change and NASCAR will be without one of its most storied teams. Petty Enterprises has won 10 Cup championships and 268 races, more than any other team in history, but has fallen on hard times recently and has not won a race since 1999.

Since the end of the season, Petty Enterprises has released 65 employees, the most notable being driver Bobby Labonte, who signed an agreement earlier this season to drive the famous 43 car for the next four years. However, given the loss of his current sponsor, General Mills, Labonte and Petty Enterprises have mutually agreed to part ways, leaving Labonte without a contract for next season.

"These discussions culminated with us agreeing that moving in a separate direction will be the greatest way to reach our end goals. It was by no means an easy decision," Labonte was quoted as saying in a David Newton article on espn.com.

Possible places for Labonte to drive include the 41 Target car at the newly formed Earnhardt-Ganasi Team, a team that has expressed an interest in the 2000 Cup Champion.

It seems as if all of the teams in NASCAR are merging just to stay afloat, and those that aren't merging are scaling back operations. The famous Woods Brothers team has released 22 employees recently and plans to compete in only 12 of the 36 races next year.

Kyle Petty has been out of the loop at Petty Enterprises since the merger with Boston Ventures and isn't as sad about the situation most would believe.

"I was not privy to any of the meetings. I was not a part of it. Once David Zucker took over as CEO, then I was out of the loop. So I've got no skin in this game," Petty said in a Joe Menzer article for nascar.com.

The most difficult change for Petty came when the organization moved from its long time home where the organization was founded in 1949 by Lee Petty.

"So as far as I'm concerned, it was Petty Enterprises when it was in Level Cross; it was something totally different when it moved to Charlotte."

The end of Petty Enterprises has been apparent to Kyle Petty for quite some time, but to most it comes as a surprise. However, such difficult times are nothing new with the current economy, but one can only wonder. What would NASCAR be like without Petty Enterprises? Will it be the same NASCAR? source>>>