You've got to hand to Rapid Richard the Randleman Rocket: he's making quite a show of it this season

  

  
Showtime, showtime, showtime! When it's time for the big show, Richard Petty always likes to be front and center (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

   By Mike Mulhern

   mikemulhern.net

   TALLADEGA, Ala.
   George Gillett, where are you?
   George?
   Maybe it's time for NASCAR CEO Brian France to reestablish that policy his father Bill Jr. once had that all Cup team owners had to be at each track on race day. Period. No excuses.
   Yes, I think so.
   And every team owner should also have to be available to meet the media on race day.
   Maybe then we could get a comment or two from the mysterious Teresa Earnhardt.
   Hey, maybe even Bobby Ginn – remember him: the guy who, in whatever twisted logic out of Daytona, is officially listed as car owner for the Clint Bowyer team….which of course is in fact owned and managed by Richard Childress.
   But back to Gillett.
   He jumped into this sport a year or so ago, with a lot of fanfare. Owns the Montreal Canadiens, that Liverpool soccer team, and a bunch of other sports investments.
   And when he bought into Ray Evernham's Dodge empire it looked like a major step up for that suddenly struggling NASCAR franchise.
   But since then Gillett has been seen only rarely at any NASCAR tracks.
   Maybe he's just an absentee owner.
   Bill Jr. wouldn't like that. He always preferred to look a man in the eyes when he had something to say, or something to listen to.
   This sport sorely misses both Bill France Jr. and Dale Earnhardt, for their uncommon commonsense about things…..
   But that's another story. This is about one Richard Petty, actually.
   And Richard Petty's world looks pretty wild and crazy at the moment.
   He has apparently taken over management of the George Gillett team, though it's unclear just how much ownership stake Petty really has. Gillett himself has all but vanished, and word is he's debating between selling the Montreal Canadiens or the Liverpool soccer team. Maybe that big, ugly financial hurricane raging has caught Gillett up too.
     However here's Richard Petty, at the track virtually every single day, sporting that famous grin, and cowboy hat, and big belt buckle.
     And however ragged his 'Richard Petty Motorsports' (aka Gillett Racing) may be running at the moment – Kasey Kahne (with nine career wins, the most recent last summer at Pocono) sits 10th in the Sprint Cup standings, with a fifth at Bristol and a seventh at Atlanta as the high points (in what is a good comeback season so far); teammate AJ Allmendinger (still winless in his two years on the tour) sits 23rd, with a season-best third at rainy Daytona and a ninth at Martinsville; teammate Reed Sorenson (in No. 43 itself) is also still winless in his three years on the tour, sits 27th , with a season-best ninth at Daytona and 12th at Phoenix; and teammate Elliott Sadler (a three-time tour winner in his 11 years on the circuit, with his most recent win in 2004 at California) sits 29th.
    Well, maybe ragged is too harsh a word, because four men in the top-35 is quite an accomplishment.
  

  

  
Mystery NASCAR team owner George Gillett: Does NASCAR need to put out an APB for him? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

  
But it's just that there are too many mysteries in this story.
   Why sign Allmendinger to a 2010 contract? When it's not yet quite clear that there is even enough sponsorship to run him in all this year's events?
    What is going to happen to Elliott Sadler? Gillett tried to fire him during the off-season, though Sadler pointed out that he had a contract in place.
    Is Sorenson getting the job done?
    And what about Kahne? He's been pretty much a mystery man ever since he arrived in NASCAR. Solid driver, but so darned quiet and shy and emotionless that it's hard to get excited about what he might really bring to the table.
   And of course there is the 800-pound gorilla in this room – the pending fate of Chrysler and Dodge, which may come down to some high-stakes poker in Washington, Detroit and Italy in the next few days.
   In the face of all these questions and issues, what is Richard Petty's latest?
   Indianapolis.
   Like the Indianapolis 500.
   With John Andretti.
   Huh?
   Not quite sure where this deal is going, or even what it means.
   But this you have to concede – Richard Petty is certainly making enough news to keep any three teams busy.
   Hey, RP may be doing it all with smoke and mirrors, but he's putting on one heck of a show.
  
  

  
And heeere's Johnny (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)