Petty seeking sponsorship for No. 45

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Sprint, the telecommunications company that began its NASCAR involvement with the late Adam Petty in the Busch Series, will cease its relationship as a Winston Cup primary sponsor with Petty Enterprises at the end of the 2002 season.

On Thursday, Petty Enterprises' CEO and lead driver, Kyle Petty, said, "We're still talking" with Sprint. But on Friday at Daytona International Speedway he said the plug would be pulled as a car sponsor.

"We continue to keep our options open with Sprint and we fully expect that we will continue to be involved with them in some way," Petty said. "They've been an important part of our team since 1996 and it's been a very successful relationship for both parties.

"The bottom line is that Sprint has not exercised its option to continue as the primary sponsor and so we need to look at other opportunities for the No. 45 Dodge."

Sprint was the title sponsor of Kyle Petty's Charity Ride Across America, a fund-raising activity that traveled from Infineon Raceway last week after the Dodge/Save Mart 350 and ended at the Petty farm in North Carolina.

After a disastrous 2001 season in which Petty's No. 45 car failed to qualify 12 times, DNF'ed in eight other events and had no top-10 finished, he has made a remarkable turnaround in 2002.

He has made all 16 races this season with a best finish of 10th at the Talladega 500, has 11 top-20 finishes and is 18th in the standings. He qualified 22nd for Saturday night's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

"We're consistent," Petty said. "We considered ourselves an organization kind of like the Yankees -- they had been to the top and won everything and then kind of fallen off and had to rebuild.

"We said all along that we felt like we could put a Petty Enterprises car in Victory Lane. We feel like we're building back and we feel like we're on our way. John (Andretti) had a chance to win at Sonoma. Jerry (Nadeau) did a phenomenal job."

Petty Enterprises fields Winston Cup cars for Petty, the No. 43 Cheerios Dodge for Andretti and the No. 44 Georgia Pacific Dodge for Steve Grissom. It also runs the No. 43 Hot Wheels Dodge in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for Carols Contreras.

Petty said the move by Sprint, the hiring of general manager Robin Pemberton, securing an engine deal with Mike Ege, the firing at the end of the spring of driver Buckshot Jones from the 44 car and several crew chief changes won't be the last for the organization.

"Change is not hard when it makes everybody better," he said. "Some of the decisions we make are hard because they're very personal decisions (but) we have to look at it in a business aspect a lot of times and say what's good for 150 or 200 people is the way we look at it.

"We're going to continue to evaluate and improve until we get all of our teams where they're competitive teams. We made changes in 2001 that affected us in 2002 and in 2005.

"When we look back, when we get to a point where we feel like we're as competitive as any team out here, we'll look back at 2001 as the year that made the most changes -- even though that was the worst year as far as results.

"I think as far as business decisions, personnel decisions, things that we made -- I think that'll be a big year for us."