So over at Richard Petty Motorsports, who's in charge...and where's George Gillett, the moneyman behind the operation?

   The King and 'the boss,' Robbie Loomis (Photo: Getty Images for NAS CAR)
   

    By Mike Mulhern
    mikemulhern.net

    DOVER, Del.
    Robbie Loomis, the man apparently running daily operations for George Gillett and Richard Petty, won't come out and say who-when-and-where directly, but he does say "it shouldn't surprise anyone" if one of the Gillett-Petty Dodge team cars this fall becomes a Ford.
   Just what is going on behind the scenes in the Gillett-Doug Yates 'merger,' or buyout, or whatever it really is, is unclear, perhaps even to many of those right in the middle of it.
   However Petty says the team, currently a four-car operation, will be running all Fords next season, most likely with Roush-Yates engines.
   And Loomis says "we're in an information gathering stage (with Fords) right now. Obviously there is a lot to learn, not just from the car side but also from the motor side. So we want to gather as much information as we can.
  "And it shouldn't surprise anybody if we have one on the track before the end of the year."
   Where?
   "There are different ways to look at it – if you're going to test the systems and the power, you'd want to go to a bigger track. If you want to test the chassis and handling, you'd go to a shorter track, or a place where it's hard to handle.
  "There are a lot of things we're trying to work through right now. Way more questions than answers."
   One question, of course, is the Gillett-Petty engine department, which it appears would essentially be dissolved at the end of the season if the newly merged operation starts running Roush-Yates engines. However there are questions about that too. And those questions have intensified with Kasey Kahne's blown engine at Loudon, N.H., which probably doomed his championship bid, and with Elliott Sadler's blown engine here Friday.
   Loomis says the two engine problems were unrelated, and he says "the engine department guys are doing great, Chuck Palmer, Charlie Segers, Bill Pink here trackside.
   "It's a shame the trouble we've had, because it has raised a lot of questions in the 'outside' world.
   "But those guys are really digging in, and they're really committed to the deal. They're really digging in through this hurricane we're going through.
   Sadler's blown engine "was a development motor," Loomis said, "in hopes of having something for Kasey's car at Kansas (next week). And fortunately the problem had nothing to do with the development part."
   So how many of those engine guys are going to be around next year? The engine staff is up to 80 people.
   Loomis said that was a question yet to be answered: "But anybody who is doing a great job is going to be in good shape for the future."
   The biggest question may be Gillett himself, who hasn't given any on the merger and who hasn't even had much to say about anything during his two years as a team owner in NASCAR. Is Gillett losing his interest in NASCAR and trying to ease out?
   Gillett hasn't been willing to talk about that.
   And what about the reports that AJ Allmendinger and Reed Sorenson are not being paid, that they have accepted much of a pay cut, in order to keep the Gillett-Petty operation a four-car team?
   That has to be bizarre. If Gillett just sold the Montreal Canadiens for $500 million….why aren't his drivers getting paid? What's going on here?
   Loomis just smiles and says the drivers aren't hurting for money: "The definition of 'getting paid' could be categorized differently for a lot of different drivers," Loomis said. "Let's be careful how we say that. Because at the end of the day, the drivers are not hurting…."
   Petty says that Gillett is in effect buying Yates' two-Ford team, which will be a four-car team next year. However the precise ownership picture being proposed isn't clear.
   Which four drivers? It is expected they would be Allmendinger, Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and Paul Menard.
   Menard has had some good weeks this season but he has generally struggled otherwise in Yates' equipment.
   Sadler has likewise struggled with Gillett, but he has at least one more year on his current contract.
   Petty says he'd like Allmendinger to be in No. 43 next season, but the specific lineup will depend on what the sponsors want. Sponsorship for the legendary Petty 43 has been varied this season; it carried Valvoline colors this weekend.
   Will Kahne be back with a new Dodge R06 engine for Kansas City next weekend? He ran an old R05 in the Dover 400.
   "That will be determined after this race," Loomis said. "The R05 has been performing great. We just have a lot more history and notebook-reliability with the R05, which is why we went back to it…as we try to settle the waters right now."