Smithfield Foods Leaving Petty Motorsports

Fordracing7 said:
That's awesome of Smithfield to do I know everybody always looks at these corporations as these big evil monsters but the reality is they make the world go around and they certainly invested a lot of money into RPM and can completely understand why they left in my opinion they should leave now screw RPM
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Yeah, I mean for having a true primary sponsor that's been paying well into the eight figures per year they should probably be getting more out of the car. I don't think Almirola is a top-tier driver but I also think SHR will be better able to showcase his abilities, if that's indeed where he winds up.
 
Ricardo should stick to standing out in front of the shop wearing a sandwich board.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Probably poor form on RPM's part to be taking shots at former sponsors and releasing information on negotiations when they don't have a sponsor anymore.

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The statement seems contradictory to me. They say they havent been happy for a long time, but the axe does not drop until mid September. Sounds more like they strung Petty along with a pretense to me, one that deprived Petty of precious time.
 
The sponsor wanted a performance improvement and a plan for that.

Perhaps RPM moving out of their shop because it was too big, looking for a smaller one, maybe moving to Chevrolet followed a year or two later by a maybe we'll move to Dodge thing didn't make sense to the people who had spent $100 million to sponsor Messrs. Murstein and Petty's race team.

I can't imagine why not.
 
I wonder if Smithfield decided to pull the plug at RPM upon seeing Kahne & Kenseth suddenly become available and figured they'd get better performance from SHR equipment?
 
aunty dive said:
Ricardo should stick to standing out in front of the shop wearing a sandwich board.
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Do you mean Petty? If so I think he deserves more respect.
The best ambassador Nascar has ever had imo.
He represented Nascar in a wholesome positive way, in the most primitive and crude times. He lost of grandson, saw a brother in law die when blown up by a compressor on pit road. He has been hammered by the wall hundreds of times, flung around at Darlington half way out of the window etc.the list is endless.
But the man has been class through it all. Nobody else of his stature comes close to really believing the fans are top priority. It isn't just a game for him, he has done right and tirelessly as long my 55 year old life can recollect. He was the class I idolized as a boy, and I believe many others had the same good taste.
How soon can people forget?

But on the hand I may have misread you, if so I apologize and I will be embarrassed if that is the case.
 
KyBuownsyourbrain said:
I wonder if Smithfield decided to pull the plug at RPM upon seeing Kahne & Kenseth suddenly become available and figured they'd get better performance from SHR equipment?
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They pulled the plug because they were tired of the high volume sucking sound enanating from the (former) premises occupied by Ricardo Petty Motorsports.
 
Greg said:
Do you mean Petty? If so I think he deserves more respect.
The best ambassador Nascar has ever had imo.
He represented Nascar in a wholesome positive way, in the most primitive and crude times. He lost of grandson, saw a brother in law die when blown up by a compressor on pit road. He has been hammered by the wall hundreds of times, flung around at Darlington half way out of the window etc.the list is endless.
But the man has been class through it all. Nobody else of his stature comes close to really believing the fans are top priority. It isn't just a game for him, he has done right and tirelessly as long my 55 year old life can recollect. He was the class I idolized as a boy, and I believe many others had the same good taste.
How soon can people forget?

But on the hand I may have misread you, if so I apologize and I will be embarrassed if that is the case.
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No, you didn't misread me.

All of those things are true. None of them alter the fact that Petty has a minor equity position in the team that bears his name. He's a figurehead. Andrew Murstein is not a nice guy.
 
Greg said:
The statement seems contradictory to me. They say they havent been happy for a long time, but the axe does not drop until mid September. Sounds more like they strung Petty along with a pretense to me, one that deprived Petty of precious time.
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That sounds to me like they were attempting to get a firm idea of how RPM planned to right their ship to perform better on the track. From the reports they walked away from the talks they were having with SHR earlier in the year. I'd like to know why. However, their statement states that when it became apparent that what they sought wasn't going to be addressed in the way they wanted it to - they walked.
 
aunty dive said:
No, you didn't misread me.

All of those things are true. None of them alter the fact that Petty has a minor equity position in the team that bears his name. Andrew Murstein is not a nice guy.
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I have no idea of how Mustein conducts business, I will take your word for it. Seriously I like reading you and your knowledge of racing, and I believe you.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Probably poor form on RPM's part to be taking shots at former sponsors and releasing information on negotiations when they don't have a sponsor anymore.

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****** roasted.
 
aunty dive said:
The sponsor wanted a performance improvement and a plan for that.

Perhaps RPM moving out of their shop because it was too big, looking for a smaller one, maybe moving to Chevrolet followed a year or two later by a maybe we'll move to Dodge thing didn't make sense to the people who had spent $100 million to sponsor Messrs. Murstein and Petty's race team.

I can't imagine why not.
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Yeah, I agree with this. Plus RPM may have proposed a driver switch toward Bubba Wallace as part of their improvement plan... but Smithfield is widely reported to be very tight with Aric Almirola. Maybe the straw that broke... etc.

Aunty, Greg is right that Petty deserves respect from all people who care about racing. He may not rank with Penske or Childress as an owner, but no one else has ever brought to the table what Petty brings. Also, what is Petty's percentage ownership of RPM? I know it is "minority owner" but you talk of the man The King like it's 1% or something. Do you disbelieve him when he said he met numerous times with Smithfield? When Aric, Bubba, and Drew Blickensderfer talk about him do you disbelieve them? I think he is more than a figurehead in a sandwich board. His comments about Smithfield were ill advised, but they were not the comments of a figurehead, IMO. Why stoop to trollish insults?
 
^ Why don't his myriad accomplishments in the sport translate to a grounded, financially stable, reasonably successful race team?

I'm not a fan. You'll have that in a large group.
 
aunty dive said:
^ Why don't his myriad accomplishments in the sport translate to a grounded, financially stable, reasonably successful race team?
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You know better than to ask that, my friend. It is a hard, hard business saddled with a business model that is basically non-viable (or nearly so) for owners who lack large commercial / industrial operations that generate B2B mother lodes. It wasn't always that way, but has become that. There is much work to be done, but at least the industry realizes that fact.
 
LewTheShoe said:
Yeah, I agree with this. Plus RPM may have proposed a driver switch toward Bubba Wallace as part of their improvement plan... but Smithfield is widely reported to be very tight with Aric Almirola. Maybe the straw that broke... etc.

Aunty, Greg is right that Petty deserves respect from all people who care about racing. He may not rank with Penske or Childress as an owner, but no one else has ever brought to the table what Petty brings. Also, what is Petty's percentage ownership of RPM? I know it is "minority owner" but you talk of the man The King like it's 1% or something. Do you disbelieve him when he said he met numerous times with Smithfield? When Aric, Bubba, and Drew Blickensderfer talk about him do you disbelieve them? I think he is more than a figurehead in a sandwich board. His comments about Smithfield were ill advised, but they were not the comments of a figurehead, IMO. Why stoop to trollish insults?
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It is important that at least one person goes against the grain regardless if they are right or wrong. IDK why Richard Petty would need to be disparaged as he is an 80 year old figurehead but it would be awful if we all agreed on everything.
 
LewTheShoe said:
You know better than to ask that, my friend. It is a hard, hard business saddled with a business model that is basically non-viable (or nearly so) for owners who lack large commercial / industrial operations that generate B2B mother lodes. It wasn't always that way, but has become that. There is much work to be done, but at least the industry realizes that fact.
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At least Richard Petty has the valuable charter to fall back on.
 
aunty dive said:
^ Why don't his myriad accomplishments in the sport translate to a grounded, financially stable, reasonably successful race team?

I'm not a fan. You'll have that in a large group.
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LewTheShoe said:
You know better than to ask that, my friend. It is a hard, hard business saddled with a business model that is basically non-viable (or nearly so) for owners who lack large commercial / industrial operations that generate B2B mother lodes. It wasn't always that way, but has become that. There is much work to be done, but at least the industry realizes that fact.
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Nearly so ... Childress and Gibbs don't have that.

It just seems odd that he was never able to make the jump. That might have something to do with the fact that the real brains behind the success of Petty Enterprises was his old man. Interestingly, the company's original corporate name was Lee Petty Engineering. In the 50's ... imagine that. His competitors had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
 
aunty dive said:
Interestingly, the company's original corporate name was Lee Petty Engineering. In the 50's ... imagine that. His competitors had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
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LOL, so true. Tonight as I drove home, I listened to Harvick on Nascar radio talking about what he did to his cars 20 years ago, without knowing why or to what effect. Intuition and trial-and-error and mostly copy-cat. It is quite different today, and you can't un-learn once you have learned. The manufacturers got all jazzed about stock cars in wind tunnels circa 30 years ago, and the sport will never be the same again.

BTW, Childress made his dough in a different era, then sold half? the company when the tide turned. Smart. Gibbs found a rich sugar daddy... TRD. Also smart.
 
Fordracing7 said:
That's awesome of Smithfield to do I know everybody always looks at these corporations as these big evil monsters but the reality is they make the world go around and they certainly invested a lot of money into RPM and can completely understand why they left in my opinion they should leave now screw RPM
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I wouldn't be so easily impressed, I've had no dealings with any CEOs, but know/have known plenty of managers that lie through their teeth to save face. This looks like damage control to me.

Piggybacking on others' points, regardless of your age, imagine your grandpa or great grandpa had a handshake deal with someone and they broke it because they didn't see it as binding. Not sure about y'all, but mine would be pretty animated and would probably tell just about anyone that asked about the situation how so and so isn't a man or woman of their word. For the record, I don't see a fault in either party's statements. The King is pretty PO'd because he felt a deal had been reached and Smithfield needs to make sure the fire gets put out before it begins.
 
Bummer for Petty and his team, this Smithfield sponsorship was just about everything to this race team, it's understandable he's probably very frustrated about everything... but slipped and made those comments, and that begged a response from the sponsor so they could protect their image and their brand.
 
Corporate Sponsor dating etiquette with NASCAR Teams should be an interesting topic coming out of this non-amicable divorce.

Smithfield running around feeding Tony yummy pork products while showing him a suitcase full of cash, probably helped that romance.

Poor Richard Petty, dealing with modern break ups where he thought a handshake would've made for a longer lasting relationship -- generational clash of expectations and corporate ethics...

When did Tony/Gene meet with Smithfield?
When did Smithfield decide on the divorce?
Who gets Almirola?

Yup, the Silly Season claims another victim...
 
aunty dive said:
You keep helping me make my point. :D
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Your point - that The King is not a high success as an owner - will get no argument from me. I just don't see that as deserving of scorn from a savvy guy such as yourself. Peace and out.
 
Good news.

Fire Almirola now. I need a good C list pick for our game.
 
LewTheShoe said:
Your point - that The King is not a high success as an owner - will get no argument from me. I just don't see that as deserving of scorn from a savvy guy such as yourself. Peace and out.
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It goes beyond that. His personal performance record is highly over-rated as well.

Just my opinion.
 
Petty's team hasn't been decent since the 90's. Too many mergers with guys who brought money and not much else, which leads me to believe Petty isn't the one calling the shots. I believe he believes there was a deal in place, but unfortunately for Petty he's not the captain of the ship. Bean counters like Murstein don't want to spend the money necessary to be running up front.

There hasn't been much stability or signs of improvement from RPM, and there didn't seem to be any confidence in that changing anytime soon. I don't blame Smithfield one bit for wanting their name on a more successful operation.
 
It hurts to say it, but the Petty legacy has been living off the past since about 1981. Richard got old and stayed on FAR too long as a driver, and they got behind in engineering, technology and people. They stayed in Level Cross too long in an outdated facility and Richard was notoriously tight with the money bag. Move into the 2000's and the loss of Adam, (I know it's heresy to say it, but I never bought Adam as the savior of Petty Enterprises anyway. He may have been reasonably talented, but I'm not sure he was a superstar in the making.) sticking with Kyle for far too long, and the whole Evernham/Gillett fiasco pretty much sucked what life there could have been out of the deal. The current team is just living off the past with nothing new to really offer. Probably the best thing that could happen would be to close the doors and have Richard become a global ambassador for NASCAR.
 
NBC says RPM is close on a deal to sign B-Dub.


Dude's going to walk right into a dumpster fire.
 
Snowman said:
I wouldn't be so easily impressed, I've had no dealings with any CEOs, but know/have known plenty of managers that lie through their teeth to save face. This looks like damage control to me.

Piggybacking on others' points, regardless of your age, imagine your grandpa or great grandpa had a handshake deal with someone and they broke it because they didn't see it as binding. Not sure about y'all, but mine would be pretty animated and would probably tell just about anyone that asked about the situation how so and so isn't a man or woman of their word. For the record, I don't see a fault in either party's statements. The King is pretty PO'd because he felt a deal had been reached and Smithfield needs to make sure the fire gets put out before it begins.
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What fire? Do you think anyone at SHR cares if they did or didn't have a "handshake" agreement? Is Kevin Harvick going to say something negative about Smithfield on his radio show? Nope. They care that they have a signed contract and checks being cut next year.
 
Formerjackman said:
It hurts to say it, but the Petty legacy has been living off the past since about 1981. Richard got old and stayed on FAR too long as a driver, and they got behind in engineering, technology and people. They stayed in Level Cross too long in an outdated facility and Richard was notoriously tight with the money bag. Move into the 2000's and the loss of Adam, (I know it's heresy to say it, but I never bought Adam as the savior of Petty Enterprises anyway. He may have been reasonably talented, but I'm not sure he was a superstar in the making.) sticking with Kyle for far too long, and the whole Evernham/Gillett fiasco pretty much sucked what life there could have been out of the deal. The current team is just living off the past with nothing new to really offer. Probably the best thing that could happen would be to close the doors and have Richard become a global ambassador for NASCAR.
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I was a big Petty fan back in the day, but I cant argue with anything you wrote.
Good to hear it from someone that respects him.
 
From @NotJimmieJ on Twitter...poor Porkchop!

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