CONCORD, N.C. -- When Richard Petty, Maurice Petty and Dale Inman walked into the Chicago office of Andy Granatelli on a snowy afternoon in 1972, they weren't convinced the head of STP wanted to do business with them.

They soon discovered otherwise, when Granatelli offered to give Petty Enterprises $250,000 in sponsorship money for the famous No. 43 car Richard drove at the time.

"It was like manna falling from the sky," said Petty, who added that despite being a winning NASCAR operation at the time, the money was desperately needed.

The money came with some additional unsolicited advice from the brash Granatelli.

"Stick with me," he told Richard, "and some day you'll be as famous as I am."

Eventually Richard Petty became a more household name than Andy Granatelli, and Petty Enterprises basically outgrew STP. Along the way, other world events in racing led to the once-proud Petty operation being reduced to a shell of its former self as far as relevancy on what is now called the Sprint Cup Series.

That may have begun changing Wednesday when it was announced that Boston Ventures, a private equity firm founded in 1983 that boasts of having pumped some $2.5 billion into more than 70 companies, was entering into a partnership with Petty Enterprises.

"They're making a huge investment in Petty Enterprises to help move us forward," said Kyle Petty, Richard's son.

For an organization that still heads the top of the history lists with 10 Cup championships and 268 race victories -- despite having failed to claim a single victory since 1999 -- the influx of cash is like pure oxygen to the body when previously only a trickle of air was flowing through a ventilator. The King's company is being taken off life support.

More to it

There is more to Petty Enterprises than the race teams that are fielded each Sunday at the Sprint Cup level, and everything was put in play to attract Boston Ventures, the investment firm that also has put up the capital to back such companies as Motown Records; Billboard Communications (of Billboard magazine fame); American Media, Inc. (of National Enquirer, ahem, infamy); and Six Flags amusement parks.

Boston Ventures plans to bring the Richard Petty Driving Experience, heretofore run as a separate company, under the same umbrella as the race operation and the new Petty Safe Driving schools for high-risk drivers aged 16 to 25. The investment firm clearly sees great potential for growing Petty Enterprises through the arms of the operation that flail freely -- and profitably -- from the racing body that so desperately required immediate medical attention.

But make no mistake. This "partnership" is mostly about positioning Petty Enterprises to produce better results on the track. Andy Davis, managing director of Boston Ventures, said as much Wednesday.

"Our goals for the race team are to bring the 43 and 45 cars back to Victory Lane, and adding a third car as soon as possible," Davis said. "It is our plan to invest significant dollars in people, technology and equipment to make this happen.

"We are not that arrogant to think that this will happen overnight. We totally recognize that there is fierce competition out there ... but it is our goal to bring Petty Enterprises back to its former glory."

Labonte stays

Bobby Labonte decided Petty Enterprises was where he wanted to stay as he signed a four-year extension with the organization.

• Complete story, click here
• NASCAR 24/7: Labonte returns
• NASCAR Today: Petty deal

They began this process by signing driver Bobby Labonte to basically what amounts to a lifetime contract. He said it locks him in for at least four more years of driving, after which he will have the option to continue driving or to assume a different role in "the partnership."

That was a good first move, a strong move. Labonte is a class act who, at age 44, still appears to have several good driving years ahead of him.

What's next?

Things will be different now at the Petty shop, which relocated to Mooresville, N.C., just last January after 59 years in Level Cross, N.C., where it was located next to the home Richard Petty grew up in.

David Zucker will be the new CEO, but he and Davis stressed that the day-to-day operations will still be handled by the likes of Richard Petty and Robbie Loomis, the former crew chief who is the head of Petty Enterprises racing operations. There will be a board, which will include Richard and other princes the King will have a hand in appointing, to make money decisions on a quicker basis than in the past -- when Loomis said final verdicts on the acquisition of basic but expensive equipment, or people, could take far too long.

In other words, the place known for being a family operation will begin to operate more like a big-time corporation -- with the deep pockets to go along with it.

"Everything has changed so much from when we first started. We've been there; we've seen it all. But as time progressed, it really got away from us from the family standpoint," Richard Petty said. "We had so many other investors or other people coming in, making NASCAR's growth come from outside in. We did it from inside out, and we just got behind -- because we still tried to do it from the automotive side inside out.

"Eventually we sat down and talked about it, and said, 'OK, guys, if we're going to play this game, we've got to get in the game.' And the only way we could see to get in the game is to get new monies coming into Petty Enterprises."

Richard Petty is not going away anytime soon, he emphatically added.

"Most people we talked to wanted to come in and buy the team and run the thing, and all that stuff," Petty said. "That's where Boston Ventures came in. They said, 'Y'all are runnin' the show. We're gonna put our money in and help you take care of the money, but grow the business.' We really like that approach more so than saying, 'OK, here are the keys; I'm outta here.'

"I'm going to be involved in the day-to-day business. I'm not going away. I'm still going to be out there, aggravating people and doing my thing. So from the outside, you're not going to see any difference other than hopefully seeing the race teams do better."

Loomis added: "I look at it like this: family businesses are great for starting up, but it reaches a point where the business takes over. It's like NASCAR when they went to the TV package, it changed. I'm not saying it changed necessarily for the better or for the worse, but it changed. I think NASCAR had to give up some control. I think TV took on some things, but it has become more of a partnership as it has moved forward.

"I think for us, it's going to be the same way."

And finally ...

Loomis said it is too soon to speculate on where the new money will be directed first. But he and Zucker, as well as Davis, kept stressing that what they need most are quality people. And lots of 'em.

In the beginning, Petty Enterprises was where the best of the best strived to get -- in terms of crew members, fabricators, mechanics, drivers, the whole ball of wax.

In the last 15 to 20 years, that changed. Petty became the place for many to get their start in the business, and then they would head elsewhere to work for organizations that could pay more. Engineers fled to other operations; drivers, at least those not named Petty, came and went; same for crew chiefs and workers occupying just about every other position in the shop over the years.

That was when it all got away from the Pettys running Petty Enterprises, and they stopped winning races.

The move to Mooresville was the first step in helping to retain some of the talent Loomis said the organization is now hoping to procure for the long haul. Partnering up with Boston Ventures is the second, and far more important, step in the process that he admitted will take some time.

Eventually, though, the goal is to get back on par with the likes of Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing, Richard Childress Racing and the rest of the top-tier Sprint Cup operations.

"It takes a long way to get to where those teams are. They all have money -- but most of all what they have are the layers of great people in their organizations," Loomis said. "That's what you've got to build toward. Equipment is one thing; but it's getting the people to look at what equipment you need before you actually need it that's more important.

"I always use the analogy of the gold-medal winner and the silver-medal winner. Usually the silver-medal winner will follow the act of someone who won the gold four years back. The gold-medal winner has kind of developed their own act as they go forward. Racing is a lot the same way. A lot of people get caught up in chasing what the other people are doing; you've got to stay ahead of the curve by kind of developing your own system and your own pieces so you have a better product on Sunday."

And you've got to have big money to do it. Now Petty Enterprises finally believes it has that.

It reminded Richard of dealing with Granatelli and STP in the early 1970s. But what it reminded him of most was how much different those times were.

"We talked to Andy Granatelli of STP in the latter part of 1971 and worked out some stuff, but didn't really sign a deal until 1972 on our way to [the season-opening race] at Riverside," Petty said. "It was a completely different type of negotiations, basically. At that particular time, we were looking for monies to come in -- but we were still running everything and we had all the control. That was a sponsorship.

"This is not a sponsorship deal. This is a partnership deal. We just thought after talking to a lot of other investment companies, this was the best fit for us in the long term and the short term."

They had to do it. They still need sponsors for their cars next season, and Loomis said the money people at Boston Ventures are in agreement that a third car cannot be added until "we make sure we have two [cars] up healthy and running." (He added that the tentative goal is to run a third car seven to 12 races next season, perhaps with Chad McCumbee as the driver, and hopefully go full-time with a third car by 2010).

But sponsorships suddenly just got a whole lot easier for Petty Enterprises to sell. Heck, Boston Ventures surely can sell something to some of its other clients. The pressure has been relieved from the Petty family on the business end.

Now it's time for them to finally get back to what they really know: competitive racing, where they challenge for victories and, ultimately, more championships. They have been away from it for far too long.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.