Jerry Markland / Stringer
The king wants to make it clear: He has not sold his charter!
Charters are basically the membership card doled out by NASCAR that guarantees teams holding them a spot in every race during a given season. Petty, who holds two charters, was rumored to have sold the charter to the iconic #43. He tells kickinthetires.com that’s wrong.
?We?re leasing it,? Petty said. ?We leased one last year and you can?t lease it for two years in a row, so we just changed it.?
NASCAR rules allow charter holders to lease their charters to other teams for one year. RPM leased the charter to the #44 car in 2017, but the rules say you can?t lease the same charter two years in a row, so RPM decided to lease the #43 charter to Rick Ware Racing. Does that mean the #43 can?t run next season?
?The #44 (charter) was leased last year and the #43 will be leased this year,? said Petty. ?We will run the #43 car under the #44 charter. It?s all screwed up, politics I guess.?
Confused yet? It?s basically shuffling licenses so that the #43 will still be on the track. Bottom line, RPM hasn?t sold anything, and will line up come February in Daytona.
