[/quote]

The 2023 NASCAR season will be the first without a team bearing the Petty family name.

Petty GMS Racing announced Wednesday that it was changing its team name to Legacy Motor Club. The name change comes after seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson joined the team’s ownership group at the end of the 2022 season. [/quote]


no JJ BOUGHT MAJORITY INTEREST in the race team in November 2022. they renamed it legacy motor club a month or so later..
after reading Pettys comments about about not liking JJ doing things his way he hinted he will be selling out completely to JJ in 4 or 5 years.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mo...ves-it-s-been-strange-to-me/ar-AA17GBt9?

One of the commentators - I think Mike Joy - mentioned that The King had sold his interest to GMS before JJ came onboard.
Guess that makes Petty basically an advisor and kind of a brand ambassador for the team.
In a separate interview, Petty basically said he didn't really like the new way the team operates, but inferred that it's a more modern business model, the team is moving forward, and he understands that.
He apparently has no say in things any more, but is essentially the face that bridges the old team (for fans & sponsors, I'd guess) to the new team.
The Pettys never allowed tobacco or alcohol sponsors, IIRC, but I suppose GMS/JJ might "allow" an alcohol sponsor.

^

That's kind of sad in that it's the end of an era, but in all honesty I think the wind was taken out of the sails of the Petty organization with the death of Adam Petty. After that there seemed to be less meaning in their existence, as viewed from the outside at least.

These days I still find some interest in NASCAR, as after all it is still motor racing, but I don't find it as appealing with "stages", and spotters/cooperation, etc. being necessary. I was more of a fan of production-based cars running as individual racers without having to rely on a push or a favour from some other driver/team. I'll still watch, though, because it's motor racing and therefore much more appealing than football or whatever.

H e l l yes!

There gonna need bigger speakers and amps than the donks to replicate the days of thunder sounds !

They can race and vacuum the track simultaneously!

The cars look a lot better than they did a few years ago. I enjoyed the race but not how it ended, they need to fix that. Also regarding Mopar, Dale jr said they were in talks with 2-3 teams to re-enter and then abruptly got up and left [/quote]

Who abruptly got up and left,Dale or Mopar people? Any links to this? Thx

I watched nearly the entire thing for the first time in maybe 15 years.

One thing I realized is that in 40 years, today's 10-year-old fans aren't going to remember a single car or driver the way I remember the cars and drivers from 40 years ago. Today's cars are boring, and the drivers are boring pretty boys, and there is nothing iconic or even memorable about either the cars or the drivers.

So true Greg. It's taken the same direction as modern "country" music.

So your telling me they still have the daytona 500? I haven't seen or heard anything about it in years.

Who abruptly got up and left,Dale or Mopar people? Any links to this? Thx [/quote]

Mopar got up and left. Its in one of Dale jr's podcast episodes

“‘What the Hell NASCAR!?’” – Dale Earnhardt Jr Makes an Exciting Claim on Dodge’s Plan That Would Calm Brad Keselowski & the Fans Down

Published 10/13/2022, 3:30 AM MDT

https://www.essentiallysports.com/n...ould-calm-brad-keselowski-the-fans-down/

It was recently reported that Dodge has completely pulled the plug on their NASCAR re-entry, much to most of the fans’ disappointment. However, if Dale Earnhardt Jr is to be believed, all hope shouldn’t be lost just yet.

In a recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download, the NASCAR Hall of Famer opened up on the story of Dodge closing the door on NASCAR.

“With the Dodge deal, so I believe that there are a lot of people in Dodge that want to be in NASCAR and it’s basically a couple of key individuals that are yet to be convinced that it’s a good move or something they need to do now,” he said . “So while Dodge is not coming right now, I don’t think the door shut on that.”

Having said that, Earnhardt Jr. claimed that the speculated reason for Dodge changing their minds because of the low horsepower aspect in the current era of the sport cannot be all that true.

“I think that the message point about why they didn’t come, focusing on NHRA, it’s just filler,” he described.

“I don’t think that they intended it to be a read between the lines about horsepower, it definitely plays really well into that messaging and it opens it up for fans to go, ‘What the hell NASCAR? We thought this was going to be absolutely what would bring them in.’”

The former Hendrick Motorsports driver revealed how Dodge, for the time being, not entering the sport is going to hurt Brad Keselowski, his team, and one other Cup team the most of all the current and future stakeholders in this context.

“I think this affects RFK and Front Row because I think both of those were probably likely gonna go to the Dodge deal,” he said.

Dale Jr. argued that because of this, “new challenges” will await RFK Racing and FRM simply because they must’ve been planning and preparing for Dodge, but now with the situation being what it is, it’s going to create “new hurdles” for them.

“Not that it’s any kind of a setback if this is not gonna be what they hoped it would be in terms of being able to usher in a new manufacture,” he added.

Did you not see Ross Chastain pull the wall riding incident last year to gain all those spots, get into the playoffs and end up finishing 2nd for the championship?

Dude smashing Watermelons after a win is pretty memorable, too!