(workingonmyredneck file photo)
Richard Petty Motorsports co-owner Andrew Murstein said the company has made an offer for driver Clint Bowyer.
During an interview on SirusXM Radio, Murstein said RPM was looking to expand from the two-car operation to three teams for 2012.
“When we had that media day opportunity at the beginning of the year, I perhaps went a little further than I should and I said I wanted to add a third team pretty quickly, and Danica (Patrick) and Clint Bowyer came to mind,” Murstein said. “And afterwards, Richard said, ‘You sure you want to make those aggressive assumptions?’ Again, it goes back to me having such confidence in these guys that I think they can deliver almost anything.
“So we’ve been thinking about the third team for the last six months or so, and we’re close to doing something. I don’t know if it will be Clint. It’s no secret that I like him and Richard likes him, and I think he would be a great fit for our organization. We’d never even had these conversations over the last couple of years. Richard told me drivers had not been approaching him for driving because perhaps he wasn’t as good as he is today. So I think it’s a great accomplishment for the team that people are even talking about us and Clint Bowyer in the same breath. That said, sure, we’d love to have him. We gave him an offer recently and are hoping to hear back from him.”
Bowyer is 11th in the point standings — 24 points out of the Chase. He has four career victories but has yet to win in 2011.
While Bowyer is rumored to have 5hour Energy as a sponsor for next season, there would be additional inventory to fill.
Murstein, whose day job is president of Medallion Financial, understands the challenge of advertising particularly in the current economy.
Murstein acknowledges that Bowyer has “one or two sponsors” who would be willing to come on board.
“Clint’s name and reputation are great and sponsors really like him. I’m not worried at all about the sponsors for him. If we signed him, I think we would have a sponsor for him 30 days after we signed him.”
Looks like possibly a domino is about to fall in the 2011 silly season of NASCAR.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
