{"id":82707,"date":"2021-12-02T12:31:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=82707"},"modified":"2021-12-02T12:31:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:31:17","slug":"petty-divests-majority-interest-nascar-team-to-gallagher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/petty-divests-majority-interest-nascar-team-to-gallagher\/","title":{"rendered":"Petty Divests Majority Interest NASCAR Team to Gallagher"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The King found a kindred spirit to take on the Richard Petty Motorsports mantle: long-time team owner Maury Gallagher.<\/em><\/h3>\n

At the age of 84, maybe it\u2019s time for the acknowledged King of NASCAR, Richard Petty to think about slowing down. The most successful Cup Series driver of all time with 200 wins as a driver, and a team owner or co-owner for much of his life, Petty has attempted, on various occasions, to find a complementary lover of the sport to assume control of his Level Cross, North Carolina facilities and Richard Petty Motorsports (RPM) team.<\/p>\n

As NASCAR prepares to celebrate its Cup Series champion in Nashville on Thursday, December 2nd, the baton is apparently passed from Richard Petty to long-time team owner Maury Gallagher, who has purchased the majority interest in Richard Petty Motorsports from The King, effective immediately. Filings with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) state the financial value of this change of ownership is nearly $20 million.<\/p>\n

While not at the top of the recent NASCAR Cup Series wins ladder – RPM\u2019s most recent victory came with Aric Almirola in the July 2014 race at Daytona International Speedway – this change of ownership could elevate the team and current driver Erik Jones (if he\u2019s retained) from their current mid-level status. And Maury Gallagher, as we so often say, is the real deal.<\/p>\n

Gallagher has been an active NASCAR team owner for nine years, coming to the Camping World Truck Series in 2013 and retaining status in that touring series. Gallagher\u2019s GMS Racing has accumulated 41 victories with 14 different drivers, earning the 2016 Truck Series championship with Johnny Sauter and following that with a second title, in the difficult 2020 season, with Sheldon Creed.<\/p>\n

Gallagher recently announced he had two NASCAR charters for the 2022 Cup Series season; his GMS team confirmed, in early October, that it had signed Ty Dillon as a full-time Cup Series driver for 2022, competing in the No. 94 Chevrolet. GMS hired Jerame Donley, formerly of Chip Ganassi Racing, to lead that team. It\u2019s unclear, at this time, whether Gallagher will honor Erik Jones\u2019 contract with RPM next year or declare a different driver for the second charter seat, driving the iconic No. 43 Chevy.<\/p>\n

In a short December 1 release, GMS Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports stated: \u201cRichard Petty Motorsports has agreed to sell a majority interest to Maury Gallagher, owner of GMS Racing. Two charters are included in the agreement, and will be operated during the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. This is a special moment for both organizations, as the Next Gen car allows a new chapter to be written.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because cars will be brand new in 2022, there is a distinct leveling of the NASCAR Cup Series playing field. While the best prepared teams will always have an advantage, recognizing the peculiarities of a brand new race car as it goes from one diverse track to another, is still an unknown entity, even with ongoing testing. Starting anew, albeit with a wide swath of experience in both squads, will help acclimate the GMS Racing team and its drivers to their unique situations as testing continues before the Daytona 500 in February.<\/p>\n

Added details about this conjoined enterprise will be revealed next Tuesday, December 7 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, NC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As NASCAR prepares to celebrate its Cup Series champion in Nashville on Thursday, December 2nd, Richard Petty is set to pass the baton to long-time team owner Maury Gallagher, who has purchased the majority interest in Richard Petty Motorsports, effective immediately. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":33281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470],"tags":[8755,127,786,7951],"class_list":["post-82707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","tag-maury-gallagher","tag-nascar","tag-richard-petty","tag-richard-petty-motorsports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Petty.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-lvZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82708,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82707\/revisions\/82708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}