Richard Petty jumps to Ford and merges with Yates-Roush!

  Richard Petty and Kasey Kahne: Dodge's loss is Ford's gain. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   RICHMOND, Va.
   Richard Petty, fresh off Kasey Kahne's victory in Sunday night's Atlanta 500, has pulled another surprise – and this one is a doozy: he and business partner George Gillett have just signed a deal to merge with Ford's Doug Yates, who heads Ford's NASCAR engine program and who runs a Jack Roush 'satellite' operation on the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour.
   So Dodge – which lost Petty back in the Sixties to Ford, and which lost Petty in the Seventies and Eighties to General Motors – is now once again losing Petty.
   No word from Michael Accavitti, Dodge's racing boss. And no word from Toyota's Lee White, who said two weeks ago that Dodge probably had the inside track with Petty, and who thus indicated that Toyota – last year on Gillett's to-do list in NASCAR – was no longer in the running for the seven-time NASCAR champion.
   Officially the announcement is that the Petty-Gillett operation, which runs under the logo Richard Petty Motorsports, and Yates Racing "have signed a letter of intent to merge operations in time for the 2010 season. The four-car team will race Fords under the Richard Petty Motorsports banner."
    Wow!
    Who will be the drivers? At the moment it looks like Paul Menard (currently with Yates) will join Kahne, Elliott Sadler and AJ Allmendinger. What happens to Darnell and Reed Sorenson and number 43 is unclear.
    Petty, who had given no inkling of such a move, called it "a pretty big deal for us."
    Understatement there.
   "We've talked with a lot of folks, but in the end it came down to the success the Gilletts and I think we can achieve with Ford," Petty said.
    "Right now this deal is real new. There are lots of details still left to be ironed out. So we don't have a lot of answers for anyone right now.
    "We'll be working on all that in the coming days, weeks and months. But we do intend to have everything in place before the start of next season."
    Foster Gillett, who helps manage the Petty team for his father George, said Sunday's victory was the clincher: "And Ford is going to provide the support we need to go to victory lane more often.
    "If you are going to compete with the other teams in this sport you need a lot of support."
    Petty himself earlier this summer dissed Dodge for not keeping up with the checks that he expected, because of Chrysler's bankruptcy.
    Toyota was considered in the running for the Petty name, and sponsors like Budweiser and Best Buy certainly provide a marketing advantage, which Gillett pointed out: "We bring a lot to this relationship.  
    "We've won twice this season (including that Sonoma surprise by Kahe). And the power of Richard Petty is hard to beat.
   "Plus we have the support of some of the biggest names in corporate America."
   Max Jones, who helps Yates run the operation, says "over the coming weeks we will work to lay out the best plan for Paul Menard and all of the employees at Yates Racing. We will continue to field both teams (with Menard and Bobby Labonte and rookie Erik Darnell swapping the other ride) the remainder of the season."
    For Yates, the move is ironic in one respect – his father Robert built the engine that Petty himself used to win at Daytona in 1984 in front of President Reagan.
    Yates, who has struggled as a car owner this year, and who hasn't been at a track in months, called the merger "clearly in the best interest of the Ford racing community."
    For Brian Wolfe, Ford's racing boss, the move – almost certainly pulled together in part by marketing guru Geoff Smith, head of Roush Fenway Racing – is something of  a coup, and certainly highly unexpected. "I am very pleased that Richard Petty Motorsports has made the decision to switch to Ford," Wolfe said. "They had choices other than Ford, and it's gratifying to us they have enough faith in Ford Motor Company and what we're doing to make the switch.
   "We believe we can provide them with superior analytical tools and power-train engineering. We will work with them closely on the technical front to help them become even more competitive."