Potential Petty merger a 'wake-up call' to teams

NEW YORK -- NASCAR without a Petty Enterprises? It's an idea that competitors were struggling to comprehend Thursday, in what should have been a celebratory atmosphere during Champions Week.

Jimmie Johnson will be crowned as Sprint Cup champion on Friday evening at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, but the mood in New York was tempered by reports that Petty Enterprises was in negotiations to merge with Gillett Evernham Motorsports, in a deal that could alter one of auto racing's most recognizable names. The Petty team has competed in NASCAR since the beginning, winning 10 championships and 268 races on the sport's premier circuit.

Joining forces?

According to Internet reports, Petty Enterprises is in discussions to merge its organization with the three-car operation of Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

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But the team has been dogged by sponsorship issues in recent years, to the point where its flagship No. 43 car -- the one Richard Petty drove to seven titles and 200 wins -- has yet to secure backing for the 2009 season.

"It's extremely disappointing to hear that's happening to the Pettys," four-time champion Jeff Gordon said. "Who doesn't want to have this sport with the Petty team in it? I hope they find a way to keep that. I don't know all the details, but I think it's important to our sport. But it's also a huge wake-up call to all of us, that none of us are immune to what could potentially happen."

It's not the first time the Petty team has been connected to merger speculation; the organization and Chip Ganassi's outfit reportedly had discussions to that effect last season, and Richard Petty has said countless times that his team has always been willing to listen to potential partners. The Pettys took on one of those last year, when the Boston Ventures private equity firm purchased controlling interest in the organization.

But the team retained the Petty name, of particular significance to the generations of Pettys who have established a franchise as well-known as almost any other in NASCAR. Keeping that name has always been very important to the Pettys -- and the idea that the name may be changed, or altered in some way from the Petty Enterprises everyone in the sport has known since 1949, was to competitors a sign of just how unforgiving the current economic climate can be.

"They're probably the biggest family name in NASCAR," two-time champion Tony Stewart said. "Obviously, it's a huge change in our sport. I'm kind of digesting it here as I've heard about it, but it just shows you how delicate the economy is right now, and how it's affecting racing."

A Petty-GEM merger would continue a wave of structural changes involving teams on NASCAR's premier series, among them a recent merger between Ganassi's organization and Dale Earnhardt Inc., and personnel cutbacks among a number of smaller and mid-level programs. Race teams are particularly susceptible to the current economic recession because of their dependence on corporate sponsorship dollars, which are considerably more difficult to come by in tight financial times.

"I think we're still going to have 43 teams racing," said six-time champion car owner Richard Childress. "We've sold some cars to some guys who are going to come out racing. We'll have cars that are racing, for sure next year. We'll have full fields, I think. We'll just have to see how it works. We all have to hit that reset button. Nothing is going to be the same. We just have to hit that reset button and build back. I've been in this thing, next year will be our 40th year, and we've been through all kinds of different things, and we'll get through this."

But maybe not with the same Petty Enterprises name. "You think of Petty and NASCAR," Gordon said, "and you think of something that will always be together."