AVONDALE, Ariz. -- George Gillett Jr. speaks with a sense of awe whenever he mentions the name of Richard Petty.

"There is a little tremble in my voice when I talk to him," Gillett said Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway. "He is The King -- and that's not a title somebody gave him, it's something he earned."

Gillett, who took over majority ownership of what is now known as Gillett Evernham Motorsports on Aug. 6, has been involved in talks with Petty for months about possibly incorporating Petty Enterprises into his new racing operation. Those talks aren't really ongoing at the moment; but they aren't dead, either, according to both parties.

In a rare conversation with the media, Gillet said Sunday that he's still willing to listen if The King wants to hold court. Earlier, Petty said that he's still willing to listen to anyone who might help better his family-owned business -- but not at the price of giving up the "family-owned" portion of it.

Gillett pointed out that GEM will continue a business relationship with Petty Enterprises that began before he assumed majority control of the company from Ray Evernham, who founded the operation as Evernham Motorsports in 2001. Under that arrangement, GEM is responsible primarily for providing Dodge engines for the Petty Enterprises teams, which include the No. 43 driven by Bobby Labonte and the No. 45 driven by Kyle Petty at the Nextel Cup level.

"We hope to have at the least a commercial relationship with them in terms of continuing to supply their engines to them, and perhaps their chassis," Gillett said. "They've got engines that make them go fast, and they're doing well. They haven't had any broken engines, and it's been a good relationship.

"Whether it goes any further than that, that's really up to Richard. It's not up to us. We're hugely respectful of him, and if he wants to talk in the future, we'd certainly listen. But at this point, it's a commercial relationship."

Petty said anything is possible. But as he has done in the past, he again made it clear that it would have to be on his terms.

Petty Enterprises announced only last week that it is moving its race operations from Level Cross, N.C., to the shop that used to house Robert Yates Racing in Mooresville, closer to Charlotte and the epicenter of the stock car world.

"We're open to whatever is coming down the pike. We've not made any deals with anybody," Petty said. "We're still moving forward as an independent deal. We're moving to Mooresville on our dollar, our deal -- because we're going forward.

"If a partner happens to come through who fits into our mold who we feel like can take us a little further forward, we'll sit down and talk to them. If we don't, we're going to go right on down the road and go racin' just like Petty Enterprises always has."

Gillett said he recently visited the Victory Junction Gang Camp for terminally and chronically ill children that was established by Richard's son, Kyle Petty, and Kyle's wife, Pattie, after the death of their son Adam -- Richard's grandson -- in a racing accident in 2000.

Period of transition

It has made the first step toward restoring its grand tradition, writes David Caraviello, but there's more to come for Petty Enterprises.

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"I am hugely respectful of him and his family and their tradition," Gillett said. "I know he's gone through a lot, but he and Kyle and Pattie have come back in a way that I can't believe.

"I went to see Victory Junction the other day, and it just blew me away. I don't know that I've cried as much as an adult as I did there. It is so inspirational. What they have done and what they have given back to the sport, they're on my pedestal."

Petty Enterprises has signed a two-year lease for the building that previously housed RYR. After that, Petty acknowledged that the hope is to have purchased some land elsewhere nearby to build a more permanent, state-of-the-art facility.

"The Robert Yates building was just sort of a stopgap," Petty said. "It gives us a good place to go without having to wait to build and go through all the politics of that to get established. We're moving into an established shop that is big enough to take care of what we need to do."

In other words, Petty Enterprises is able to move forward -- for now -- without necessarily merging with an outside investor such as Gillett.

"In other words, we're not in a mode that we've got to take anything that comes down the road," Petty said. "We're going to sit down and if we talk to people, we'll say, 'OK, this is our criteria. If you're interested in talking to us under these circumstances, we'll talk to you. If not, then there ain't no need to come on in.' We're setting the boundaries of what we need to go forward, not letting someone else [set them]."

But Petty did admit the need for some change eventually if Petty Enterprises is to ever return to the form that allowed it to win a total of 268 races between 1949 and 1999. Petty Enterprises has won none since then, and has registered only three victories in the past 23 seasons.

"We can survive. But the deal is we don't want to just survive," Petty said. "We've been surviving for a while. We want to go to the next level and go back in the right direction instead of going downhill. I think we've hit bottom in terms of being able to survive the way we've been operating. But that's not what Petty Enterprises has ever been about or ever wants to be about."

So could some sort of merger or at least expanded working partnership between GEM and Petty still occur in the future?

"I don't want to get ahead of myself," Gillett said. "The answer is we're hugely respectful of him. I just saw one of his family members, and there were big hugs and so forth. We're highly respectful and we have a good business relationship. What comes out of that, I don't want to speculate."