NASCAR: Time to put up or shut up for Richard Petty Motorsports

Richard Petty Motorsports and Darrell Wallace Jr. enter their second season together in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, and they need to put up or shut up during it.

Hey, NASCAR fans! The march to Daytona is yet another step closer! In a little more than three weeks, we get to witness action-packed racing on the high banks of Daytona International Speedway!

As the 2019 Cup Series season draws closer, so do my expectations for it! I won’t read into my crystal ball for a couple more weeks, but I already have my eye on one special team for the upcoming season, Richard Petty Motorsports.

Richard Petty Motorsports, more commonly known as RPM, are entering their 11th season of operation. Don’t be confused by the more commonly known race team Petty Enterprises, which were formed by Lee Petty in 1949 and officially closed their doors in 2008.

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Thought RPM are a virtual extension of Petty Enterprises, the two are technically two separate entities. For a short history lesson, Petty Enterprises were owned and operated under the hands of Lee Petty, father to the “King”, Richard Petty.

Richard himself drove for Petty Enterprises for much of his Cup Series career, which results in a record 200 victories and record-tying seven championships.

Through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Petty Enterprises were a staple inside the Cup Series garage. But they started on a downhill spiral in the early 1980s. Richard’s retirement occurred after the 1992 season, and the team continued to struggle over the next decade and a half.

The team’s final win came in 1999, when John Andretti took home his second and final Cup Series win at Martinsville Speedway. The team faced financial issues and merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports for the 2009 season.

The whirlwind didn’t stop there.

The team notorious for having backing from Dodge switched manufacturers in 2010 and merged with yet another failing organization, Yates Racing. Now fielding Fords, they were a mixture of three previous race teams: Evernham, Petty and Yates.

A year later, changes came again.

The Gillett family faced financial issues, leading to Douglas Bergeron, Andrew M. Murstein with his personal company Medallion Financial Corporation and Richard Petty himself coming together to now co-own the race team we now know as Richard Petty Motorsports.

Now, with a history lesson behind us, let’s get to the overarching point of today’s post. It’s time for the modern Richard Petty Motorsports to put up for shut up for 2019.

Taking a look back over the last decade of the contraption known as Richard Petty Motorsports, the organization has a total of five wins, the latest coming in the 2014 season when Aric Almirola won a rain-shortened Coke-Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

Richard Petty Motorsports have a career-high points finish of 10th place by Kasey Kahne in the 2009 season, but they have finished in 17th or worse in the championship standings since the 2015 season.

Almirola. who had been with the organization since the 2012 season, departed after the 2017 season and handed the famed #43 ride to youngster Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr.

In his first season driving for the team, Wallace Jr. earned one top five finish and three top 10 finishes. Highlights of the 2018 season for him included his second place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 and when he took the lead for six laps of the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Along the way, the team faced much adversity. Wallace Jr., still learning the ropes of the Cup Series circuit, finished with a 24.5 average finish and ended up in 28th place in the championship standings.

Struggling to find results, the team also struggled to find sponsorship throughout the season. This leads to the biggest concern for RPM moving forward: staying afloat. They are facing similar issues entering the 2019 season, which indicates that the time is ticking on this decade-old organization.

To make things as easy as possible, the 2019 season could make or break RPM. The sponsorship market is already drying up quickly due to lack of viewership, and race teams that can’t compete for wins often find themselves in holding patterns for financial backing.

Click n’ Close, which sponsored Wallace Jr. in multiple races in the season, already ended its relationship with the Richard Petty Motorsports, and a replacement has not yet been named.

Wallace Jr. and company will have to put some sort of resume together during the 2019 season or we could see the evolution of Richard Petty Motorsports continue. Many race fans, myself included, want to see this race team remain at the Cup Series level, but we also understand the harsh reality of what’s in front of them.

Wallace Jr. is one of the best personalities in the garage, but after years of struggling in the Xfinity Series and a rough rookie season in the Cup Series, fans are already on the fence about the Alabama native’s ability to get the job done on Sundays.

The same goes for the race team. If Richard Petty Motorsports continue to field 25th place race cars, then sponsors and fan interest will minimize over time. Take this year for example. The intrigue of this race team and driver combination has already dwindled since this time last year.

The bottom line is that both the driver and the team could be in major hot water if some sort of consistency doesn’t emerge in the 2019 season. Any hope of Wallace Jr. landing a secure future in the sport or RPM becoming a race-winning organization again very much lies in their results over the next 10 months.

Personally, I consider myself a Darrell Wallace Jr. fan and believe he has the talent to win at the highest level of the sport, but his performance in the 2019 season could define or undermine his future in it. The sad part is, the entire race team of the legendary Richard Petty are in the same boat.

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Thanks for reading! Give us your predictions on what Richard Petty Motorsports will accomplish during the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season! Can Darrell Wallace Jr. overcome the organization’s problems? Will RPM bounce back to become a contender this season?

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