There's been a lot of turmoil in the Petty Enterprises camp as of late thanks to a number of problems facing the once dominant (like, 20 years ago) but now struggling race team thanks primarily to the funding coffers starting to dry up.The problem is simple -- PE wants to race two teams next season with Bobby Labonte and Chad McCumbee full time with current driver Kyle Petty on a part-time basis without having any sort of adequate funding. So naturally, when money gets tight, people turn sour, and problems arise.
As a result, Kyle Petty (Richard Petty's son who has been in the NASCAR game since 1979 with eight career wins) might be ride-less in 2009 in a move that would likely end what has been a slow trickle down of the number of races he's entered in the past two years.
"Right now, I got nothing," Petty said Saturday at Phoenix, where he'll start 35th in his last race of the year. "Straight up, I got nothing. So I'm still just looking."Sunday's race at Phoenix International Raceway (FanHouse is live-bloggin' it again!) will be Petty's last race of the 2008 season because the up and coming McCumbee will try to make the season finale next week at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Petty has tested with and considered running in a road course racing series in 2009 -- a medium of racing he has some prior experience in.
Regardless, the way things have been shaking out for PE and Kyle have been more than unfortunate in 2008. There's been rumors of in-fighting in the organization and Petty has been a little outspoken on how the way he thinks things should be run are in stark contrast to that of the other PE executives.
That being said and my disappoint for how the PE situation has run such an ugly course in really the past decade, I feel that Kyle's benefit to NASCAR as a whole would be higher in a role other than a driver. The guy truly has a fantastic personality, is a tremendous analyst of all thing's going on in the sport and has been able to pull off some of the biggest charity work this sport has ever seen (which tops any race win by any race driver in my book).
I'll be cheering on Kyle Sunday afternoon if it is indeed his final Sprint Cup race, but I'll be happy to know he'll be making positive impacts on the sport we all love for a long, long time.
