DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Richard Petty didn't even look like Richard Petty. The King walked through the garage area Sunday night wearing a ball cap instead of his trademark cowboy hat, his sunglasses long stashed, a broad umbrella protecting him from the rain. Something else was different, too -- cars bearing the Petty name finishing near the front in a Sprint Cup event.

“

I can play that pass back in my head a million times between now and when I leave to go to California, but it's not really going to change the outcome.

”

ELLIOTT SADLER

But that's what happened Sunday night in the Daytona 500, when the rechristened Richard Petty Motorsports -- an amalgamation of Gillett Evernham Motorsports and the old Petty Enterprises -- placed three cars in the top nine at Daytona International Speedway. A.J. Allmendinger finished third, Elliott Sadler fifth and Reed Sorenson ninth in what proved a strong debut for the new organization. Sadler even had a chance to win, leading the pack when drizzle began to spit from the sky, but shuffled behind eventual champion Matt Kenseth by the time rain started to fall in earnest.

Still, Petty wasn't complaining. "It was awesome anyway," the seven-time series champ said. "To miss everybody and still get three in the top nine? That's pretty good."

After 10 championships, 268 race victories and six decades in business, Petty Enterprises shut down after last season because it was unable to secure primary sponsorship. The remains of the once-great organization were sold to GEM, a team started by championship crew chief Ray Evernham and now controlled by sports mogul George Gillett. Petty brought over two cars, a handful of people and the unparalleled Petty name, which Gillett thought so much of he used it to rebrand the entire organization.

It was far from a perfect marriage. Dozens of crewmen were laid off in the merger, Petty as a solely owned entity was relegated to history, and as recently as Saturday former Petty driver and chairman Kyle Petty voiced his displeasure as to how the transaction occurred. After all that upheaval, Sunday's performance proved a welcome relief. The only downer was the 29th-place finish recorded by RPM driver Kasey Kahne.

"We're hoping this will settle a lot of stuff down, the scuttlebutt and all the crap," Petty said. "By moving in and doing the deal, I think this will just keep everything on an even keel. I think it will be good. I know it will be good."

Race Video

• Final Laps: Sadler passed
• Allmendinger finishes third
• Sadler reflects on his finish

It was definitely good for Allmendinger, who recorded an unexpected third-place finish in his first Daytona 500 start. Sadler, though, was left ruing what might have been. He and Sorenson stayed out on a late pit cycle, a move that proved fortuitous after Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers tangled to ignite a 10-car wreck. Under the ensuing caution, Sadler began to see raindrops fall. Still, the event went on. "Just my luck, Kevin," he told team director Kevin Buskirk over the radio. "Raining on the radar, not on the race track." His displeasure only increased as the race returned to green, and Kevin Harvick pushed Kenseth into the lead on what proved to be the final green-flag lap.

"I can play that pass back in my head a million times between now and when I leave to go to California, but it's not really going to change the outcome," said Sadler, who nearly lost his ride in the offseason, but regained it under threat of a lawsuit. "I needed to do a better job leading the race and put my car in a position to make it wider for them to pass. I can sit here and try to be a Monday morning quarterback, but it's not going to work. We'll take it as a loss and need to do a better job next time, worry about when we come back here in July."

If only it was that simple. "I'm not going to lie to you," he said. "I was getting pretty emotional under the caution when it was raining a little bit in Turns 1 and 2. I thought it was going to be called a little bit earlier than it was. I was getting emotional in the car thinking, wouldn't this be the coolest story?"

Even so, there were few frowns among the RPM crew on Sunday night. "The team's done a lot of work in the offseason," Allmendinger said. "Brand new race cars. Everybody's putting a 100 percent effort into it. You can see when you go to the shop and at the race track just everybody's attitude, even from the five races that I was there last year, everybody's pumped up to be here and excited. You got the King walking around saying hi to everybody, making sure everybody's good. It's a lot of fun at the race track right now."

But not too excited, at least not yet. Given Daytona's specific rules, setup packages and aerodynamic characteristics, nobody wanted to make too much of just one race. After all, everybody remembers how Dodge and Ryan Newman prevailed in last year's Daytona 500, only to struggle the remainder of the year. Next weekend's event at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California may be more telling.

"You can't take one race and make any judgment from it," said Robbie Loomis, RPM's executive vice president of race operations. "We've had good races in the past. The sum total is when you look back months down the road or years down the road and you go, 'Was that a good move?' So it's going to take some time, but it sure feels good tonight."

Petty agreed. "You don't take nothing away from here that helps you anywhere else," he said. "Plated motor, it's a wide-open deal, can't tell the handling part, all that stuff is completely different. Next week is when the season starts."