Jan
25
Petty Enterprises Considering Relocation
January 25, 2007 | Posted by VroomDude
It looks like Petty Enterprises may be joining the vroomset and moving their operations to Charlotte:
Petty Enterprises officials said they have scouted land and buildings in the Salisbury area for a new race shop. Most NASCAR Nextel Cup teams — and most of the racing workforce — are based near Charlotte.
Seven-time series champ Richard Petty said the prospect of leaving the family’s racing shops, which have housed Petty cars for more than half a century, “is tough.”
Richard’s father, Lee, began working on his Plymouth in the reaper shed here in 1950. Since then, the Pettys have returned home more than 250 times as winners, the most of any team in the sport’s history. But the Pettys have not won a Cup race since 1999.
“There’s more people per capita in the Charlotte area that work on race cars than there are in Greensboro, North Carolina,” Kyle Petty said. “So you look at it that way, at some point in time I think you’ve got to weigh it and say is it (worth moving)? Yeah, it may be.
Despite talk of last year being a breakthrough year for Petty Enterprises and a return (of sorts) to former glory, Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty failed to notch a victory for the team, although they did collectively manage to collect 10 top ten finishes.
Relocating might scramble things and slow their rebuilding efforts in the short run, but it’d probably be the best move if the team hopes to be seriously competitive in the long run.