About Me
-from wikipedia-
Petty Enterprises is a NASCAR racing team based in Randleman, North Carolina. The team is owned by Richard Petty and his son Kyle Petty, who oversee the operations of two NEXTEL Cup Dodge Chargers: the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge, driven by Bobby Labonte, and the #45 Marathon Petroleum Company, Wells Fargo Dodge, driven by Kyle. In 1969, the team was first named Petty Enterprises. Despite being one of the most successful and famous teams in NASCAR history, the team has struggled in recent years, but are slowly working to rebuild there team.BeginningsThe team has been operating since 1949, when Lee Petty formed Lee Petty Engineering and the NASCAR Grand National Division #42. The team's first win came that year in Lee's 5th start at Heidelberg Raceway, with Petty and the team finishing 2nd in points that season. Petty won one race in each of the years 1950 and 1951, before collecting three victories in 1952. 1953 saw the team expand to a multi-car team for the first time, fielding a Plymouth for Jimmie Lewallen at Palm Beach Speedway, who finished second to Petty. Lee grabbed five wins that season and finished second in points before winning the championship in 1954. He followed that with six wins the next season and two more the following year, making him one of the morst dominating drivers in the series at that time. In 1957, Petty won four races as the team began running additional teams. Tiny Lund, Bill Mutz, and Ralph Earnhardt all ran races with the team, before Bobby Myers was killed in an accident at Darlington Raceway.From 1954 to 1979, Petty Enterprises won 10 championships in NASCAR's premier series. Three of those championships came with Lee Petty driving the #42, and a record seven championships came with Richard Petty driving the #43.
From 1980 to 1984, Richard Petty won several races which brought his career total to 200 NASCAR wins. Unfortunately, these were his last wins. At the end of the 1983 season, Petty announced he was leaving Petty Enterprises to drive for Mike Curb.Following the 1985 season, Petty returned to the family operation, but failed to win another race before he retired in 1992. Since Richard's retirement, Petty Enterprises has only won 3 races[1]. All these wins came in the #43 car, driven by Bobby Hamilton and John Andretti.In 2006, Petty Enterprises hired Bobby Labonte to drive the #43 car. Labonte had won the NEXTEL Cup (then Winston Cup) in 2000 while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. Petty also hired Robbie Loomis,who had previously served as NEXTEL Cup Champion Jeff Gordon's crew chief in 2001, as the executive vice president of operations. The team showed marked improvement and (#43) Bobby Labonte and (#45) Kyle Petty were able to finish 21st and 32nd respectively In the 2006 Nextel Cup point standings.The team continued its comeback in 2007, with Kyle Petty scoring a 3rd place finish at the Coca-Cola 600 (his first top 5 since 1997), and Bobby Labonte scoring 15th or higher for several consecutive races as well as three top-ten finishes. Bobby and Kyle ended the year 18th and 35th in the Nextel Cup point standings, respectively. In the owner points standings, the #43 car was 19th and the #45 car was 35th. Late in the 2007 season, Petty Enterprises will move its shop into the old Robert Yates Racing facility in Mooresville, North Carolina. It will be the first time since the enception of the company that it won't be located in Level Cross, North Carolina. PEI believes that this is necessary to move forward with the team. Said Richard Petty, "It's kind of hard for us and the people in the community to accept maybe we're not there anymore. We just feel for us to move forward and keep up with where NASCAR is going, we just felt we had to try to go somewhere else." [3]
