MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Officials from Petty Enterprises do not deny that they have held preliminary discussions about a possible future partnership of some sort with Dale Earnhardt Inc., but they strongly deny that anything is close to happening or even likely to happen.

In fact, Robbie Loomis said that DEI is not the only group with which Petty Enterprises is discussing its future. Nor is it alone in the Sprint Cup Series garage area, where Loomis insisted all teams are scrambling to find stronger footing in difficult economic times.

"I think in this time, in this sport, anybody running from one team to three teams is talking to somebody, and anybody with four teams is trying to get to eight teams," said Loomis, vice president of race operations for Petty Enterprises.

Loomis likened it to what has been taking place throughout the financial world in recent weeks. Organizations such as Petty Enterprises and DEI, which are short on sponsorship dollar commitments for next season, are trying to align themselves with larger companies that are on more solid financial ground.

This is in addition to a partnership Petty already took on in May when it sold a majority interest in its operation to Boston Ventures, an investment group.

"You know, like we saw with Wachovia and Wells Fargo and their [bank] merger -- Citigroup was looking at [Wachovia] also -- there are a lot of teams talking to a lot of people in our sport," Loomis said.

But while a Petty/DEI marriage might make sense on some fronts, on others it simply doesn't. Petty currently runs the No. 43 and No. 45 Dodge teams, and gets its engines from Gillett Evernham Motorsports, which currently fields three Dodge teams itself but has been rumored to possibly be switching to Toyotas for next season.

DEI currently fields four Chevrolet teams -- the No. 1 driven by Martin Truex Jr.; the No. 01 driven by Regan Smith; the No. 8 that next season is scheduled to be driven by Aric Almirola; and the No. 15 that is driven by Paul Menard. Three of those teams are without sponsorship for next season, with Menard already having announced that he will switch to Fords and drive for Yates Racing, taking his sponsorship with him (his father owns the Menard's home-improvement chain that is primary sponsor on his car). (Continued)