FORT WORTH, Texas -- So much was being made of what the pending loss of sponsor General Mills meant to Petty Enterprises on Friday that the other end of the equation almost went overlooked.

As in Petty Enterprises' loss should be Richard Childress Racing's gain.

General Mills announced on Wednesday that it would be shifting its considerable Sprint Cup sponsorship dollars from Petty Enterprises, where it has been the primary sponsor on the No. 43 Dodge since 2000, to a new No. 33 Chevrolet team for RCR beginning in 2009 (complete story). It will be a fourth Cup team for RCR, which also fields the No. 31 car driven by Jeff Burton, the No. 29 driven by Kevin Harvick and the No. 07 driven by Clint Bowyer.

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A lot of good things are going to come out of that. We've got to use our heads and get a good driver-crew chief combination that will fit in well with the program we've already got going on.

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CLINT BOWYER

Burton currently leads the Sprint Cup driver standings, with Harvick in second. Bowyer is ranked 12th heading into this Sunday's Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

"Obviously we believe it's going to be a positive," Burton said of the fourth team. "To be able to bring in a company like General Mills that is a very well-known company across the country into our stable is awesome. To be able to go try to recruit a top driver to drive for us, it's going to be a lot of fun.

"The fact that we're starting to get all this together in early April is, I think, a huge benefit to us to be prepared. It's going to be very difficult. There are going to be a lot of challenges along the way."

Burton stressed that one of the biggest challenges has been removed, however, by the additional time the team now will have to attempt pulling all the components together that it takes to launch a new team.

"We have the infrastructure to support a fourth team. We expanded our shops; we did all those things," Burton said. "It was all done with the understanding there would be four teams, or at least with the hope that there would be four teams. But the reality of it is, we don't have enough engineering staff right now to do four teams; we don't have enough staff for chassis build, for body hang, for all those things. We certainly don't have a fourth team in place right now, so we have a tremendous amount of hiring to do.

"There is going to be an influx of new people, an influx of new ideas and all those things are going to present challenges. So it's going to be difficult. It's going to be hard to do, but I believe we can do it. ... With the time that we have, I think we can do it and we can do it well."

Harvick said that one of the keys will be hiring the right driver. He said that the chemistry at the RCR shops right now is so good that they will have to be careful not to hire the wrong guy who might upset that.

"The fourth driver should be somebody who can contribute something to the three teams that already get along well and already have good relationships amongst the crew chiefs and teams and drivers," Harvick said. "It just doesn't need to be somebody that drags the other three teams down. It needs to be somebody who can bring something to the table and make the whole organization better."

Bowyer said that he figures not only will General Mills bring more money into the RCR stable, but that with the right hires to go along with it, more of everything that it takes to remain cutting-edge competitive in today's Cup world.

"I'm looking forward to that," Bowyer said. "I think we've got to do our homework. It's going to be beneficial to us financially and resource-wise, having an extra team. A lot of good things are going to come out of that. We've got to use our heads and get a good driver-crew chief combination that will fit in well with the program we've already got going on.

"It's just more resources to pull from and that's got to be a good thing."