You know I was talking with a friend of mine a few ago about the merger of DEI and Chip Ganassi Racing during the off-season and he was surprised when I said that I wouldn’t be surprised if more mergers like that happened before next season.
Petty Racing Gets Outta Dodge and Into Ford
Well this announcement of Richard Petty Motorsports merging with Yates Racing for next year doesn’t really surprise me but some of the details do.
more on the other side ... see you there
Well the timing of the announcement surprises me a bit, why announce it now? Why not and wait until the off-season? Wouldn’t this disturb the composure and focus of some of the teams involved?
On the other hand if you announce it now you can at least let those who will greatly affected like Reed Sorenson a chance to get something established for next year. Also, by doing it this early you have more time to get sponsors lined up, especially in this economic climate.
O.k. maybe this early announcement isn’t as shocking as it first appeared to me.
The other thing that has me a bit perplexed is that Petty is dropping Dodge for Ford.
Put a fork in Dodge I think they’re done in NASCAR once again.
When was the last time a Petty owned race car was a Ford? I think a 1969 Ford Torino Talladega was painted Petty Blue for a while.
Wow.
Even Kasey Kahne was surprised as he mentioned on his Twitter site today, "Man I need to finish strong this year in a dodge. They have done a lot for me! I was suprised by the ford thing too".
Again I can understand why they went with Ford - sort of - as Yates has a long time relationship with Ford and building Ford engines. Also, ford currently has deeper pockets to support a racing program than Dodge does and once again given this economic climate I’m not surprise after all.
So I guess my initial surprises aren’t really all that shocking once you look at the big picture, but still Petty blue on a Ford? Man.
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