MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- For a proud racing family, the very family that has in fact been christened no less than racing royalty, it is no small feat to admit that those days are long past.

Not necessarily long gone, because they hope to get them back; but definitely long past.

Kyle Petty admitted as much Friday at Martinsville Speedway, where Petty Enterprises has won a track-record 19 times at NASCAR's highest level of racing. Petty stated that while he believes the organization begun almost 60 years ago by his grandfather, Lee, and made most famous by the incredible driving exploits of his father, Richard, is on the rebound, it still has a long way to go to rejoin the elite in Nextel Cup racing.

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Richard Petty said this weekend he is open to the possibility of selling a portion of his family's race team to an interested investor.

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"I think there are A teams, B teams and C teams," Petty said. "It depends on which group you're in. If you're in the C group, you're not really trying to close the gap on the A teams. You're trying to close the gap on the B teams. That's who you focus on.

"The 24 [Jeff Gordon] and 48 [Jimmie Johnson] are top-five teams week in and week out. The 5 [Kyle Busch] is becoming that. Tony Stewart is a top-five car week in and week out. Those are your A teams. B teams can finish somewhere in the top five, but they finish mostly in the top 10 and top 15.

"Then the C teams are the rest of the teams. They can jump up there and have a top-10. They can jump up and have a top-five. They can win a race, but they don't do it consistently."

Petty's analogy was given in response to a question about how much he thinks Petty Enterprises, which fields his No. 45 Dodge and the No. 43 Dodge of driver Bobby Labonte, has closed the gap on the rest of the Nextel Cup teams this season. Heading into Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville, Petty was 32nd in the driver points standings and Labonte, a former Cup champion when driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, was a very respectable 14th.

Labonte placed 21st in the point standings last year, the highest finish for a Petty-owned car since John Andretti finished 17th in 1999. Petty Enterprises has not had a car finish in the top 10 in points for a season since the late Bobby Hamilton ran ninth in 1996.

"To say close the gap, the way I look at it, it's harder to say in four or five races how much you've closed the gap," Petty said. "We've not even got in a rotation yet. I've broken a couple of motors, tore the quarter-panel off at Daytona. Really the two races I've run I've finished 20th and 22nd. That's not closing the gap on anybody.

"Bobby [Labonte] is the same way. Bobby has had a couple of really good runs, but he's had a couple of bad runs. He's moved up in points and the outlook is good, but that doesn't mean he's closed the gap on the A teams. I do think we're getting more competitive. I think the issue for us is to become more consistent and more competitive and then figure out what we've got. We're just not at a place where we can evaluate that, I don't think."

Asked to clarify if that meant he thinks the Petty teams are C teams looking to move up into the B team category for the time being, Petty bluntly and honestly answered, "Yes, I would say so."

As they struggle to move up in Nextel Cup pecking order -- and Labonte is only 50 points out of the top 12 that at the end of the season would qualify him for a spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup -- Petty said that Petty Enterprises still operates under the same beliefs it always has. Back when Richard was winning a Cup record 200 races and seven points championships, he once scoffed at the idea that the rich seemed to get richer in the sport and that no one should be "on welfare."

Kyle Petty was reminded of his father's remark Friday, and laughed at it. But then he said that he still agrees with it. That's why he said he thinks the fastest 43 cars each week in qualifying should be the ones to race on that given Sunday, pure and simple.

Starting this week, after five 2007 races, the top 35 teams in owner points are guaranteed a starting spot in each week's race, regardless of how they qualify. That leaves the rest of the teams on the outside the top 35 fighting for only eight spots and the chance to get back in the top 35 themselves each weekend.

"This is a sport. If you believe in handouts in sports, you're just going to let everybody show up at the Masters next week. You earn a right to go to the Masters. You play golf and you get to that level where you're a major-league player," Petty said. "I can't play Major League Baseball, so I'm not going to open it up and let Kyle Petty come try.

"This is a sport where you get a report card every Sunday. You either win and pass or you run second and fail. That's the way it is. So there's 42 guys out here that fail every Sunday. It's either a passing grade or you fail. If you're not competitive enough to be here, then you shouldn't be here. Open it up and let someone else come in who is [competitive enough]. Whether you're a driver or a team, it doesn't make any difference. If you're not competitive enough to be here, then you shouldn't be on that welfare system to allow people to show up and be here from the competition side."

At the same time, Petty maintained that there are teams, the ones at Petty Enterprises included, who deserve some measure of respect in the sport they helped build -- if not some kind of outright advantage in the races on Sundays.

"This is where this is a goofy sport. That's from the competition side. From an owner's side, I should have a franchise," Petty said. "We've been here 60 years doing the same thing, beating our heads against the wall pulling from California to New York to Florida and back six times a year with some of the schedules they've made throughout the years and you've got nothing to show for it.

"That's where there's that fine line: is it a sport or a business? It's really a business six days a week. It's only a sport on Sunday, but it's a business Monday through Saturday. That's the way it works. From a business side, I'm not against the top 35 having a free ride. I'm not against a franchise. For the show, it should be the 43 fastest people."

Regardless of where they're currently ranked -- or where they might be headed -- Petty knows that his family's operation has already carved a legacy that they can be proud of. Anything they earn off of that legacy is deserved, he added.

Again, he pointed out that there are profound differences between the competition and business sides of Nextel Cup racing, and that both play an important role in the overall scheme of any organization trying to make it in the sport.

"There should not be a welfare system in sports," Petty said. "When kids play baseball -- and I'm going to be very politically incorrect here -- they ought to keep score and there ought to be a winner and there ought to be a loser. You learn from losing. Kids learn from losing. You learn sportsmanship from losing. Anybody can be a good sport when they're a winner -- but when you get your butt kicked on a soccer field or a football field and you're 8 years old and you've got to walk down that line and shake everybody's hand, there's a life's lesson in that. You've got to keep score, so the competition is the most important part in sports. The competition and the winner and the loser is the most important part. That's what we do out here on Sunday. There are winners and losers.

"In the business world, there's a totally different set of rules obviously. In that set of rules, if I look at this as a business, there are certain things and I'm not going to call it welfare. Call it sweat equity. We put 60 years here, and we deserve something back for those 60 years. The Wood Brothers deserve something back for their 50 years. Look at Hendrick, who has been in it 25-30 years. There is a pecking order.

"They deserve more than what they have now, even though they're at the top of the heap. I still believe they deserve more than they have now, and I believe for the sport to have potential to grow has been built on the back of some of those guys. Call it what you want to call it, but I do think there's a different standard from the business side to the racing."