Petty joins with investment group

First, I already know that I have been slacking on getting stuff posted to the site. I have been busy trying to meet deadline for the paper and trying to move. Anyway, the site has suffered over the past week and there is no other way to describe it. Now that I have the apologies out of the way let me say a few things about the Petty Enterprises/Boston Ventures business arrangement.

Although I hate the fact that Richard Petty and the Petty family are not the only ones that will be calling the shots at Petty Enterprises, I truly believe that had this deal not been finalized that we may have seen the eventual demise of the most famous racing organization in history.

Now, according to the press release: "Petty Enterprises, the most successful organization in the history of American motorsports, today (June 11, 2008) announced a partnership with Boston Ventures, a leading middle market private equity firm which invests in the entertainment, media, and communications sectors. This marks the first time since Lee Petty formed the organization in 1949 that an outside firm has invested in the legendary race team.  In addition to introducing new CEO David Zucker and a major investment by Boston Ventures, Petty Enterprises has also extended their contract with former NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Bobby Labonte and will integrate the operations of Petty Enterprises and the Richard Petty Driving Experience.

So, what does that mean? Well, for sure it means that Petty Enterprises will get a big chunk of cash flung at them. The idea behind this little business experiment is to build up the team and then let Boston Ventures sell off its share at a greatly increased profit. I do disagree with several of my racing reporter colleagues that continue to say that race teams are nothing more than money pits.

Can you really say that about someone like Hendrick Motorsports? I understand that the cost of "going racing" has gone up over the years but so has everything else. It is time to face facts, most of th guys that run race teams are not necessarily the best business people in the world. Correct me if I am wrong but it appears that the most successful teams are run by real business people. Look at Roush-Fenway Racing. Yes, Jack Roush took on an investor in Fenway but the team wasn't struggling before. Prior to the investment deal, Roush had won two Sprint/Nextel/Winston Cup Championships in three years. Rick Hendrick is  great businessman and owns a gazillion-dollar auto business. His race team is doing pretty good, I would say.

But look at Ray Evernham, Michael Waltrip, Leonard Wood, Robert Yates and the list goes on. All of these guys are or were racers. It doesn't mean that they aren't business-savy but I would be that any one of them could drive a racecar better than run a Fortune 500 company. Over the past seven years, NASCAR has skyrocketed in popularity and along with that has come increased costs. It is not a bad thing that the Pettys joined up with Boston ventures. In fact, if you think about it, Petty Enterprises held off for a long time before making this deal. And now that it is done, I project that Petty Enterprises with Boston Ventures help, will once-again become a dominant force in NASCAR.