Richard Petty Motorsports - Back to the future

Over the weekend, it was announced Richard Petty Motorsports would be moving yet again from its shops across the street from Roush Fenway Racing in Concord.

From Jim Utter
http://thatsracinluckydog.blogspot.com/2014/10/richard-petty-motorsports-needs-to-find.html

Richard Petty Motorsports needs to find a new home

Petty Motorsports is in the process of finding a new home for next season after the facility it currently uses in Concord, N.C., has been sold, a team spokesman confirmed.

RPM, which fields two fulltime Sprint Cup Series teams, is currently housed on Zephyr Place NW near the Concord Regional Airport. The organization moved to its current location from Statesville, N.C., in 2010.

The organization is in the process of looking at several different facilities, team officials confirmed.

The shop had been previously used by Robert Yates Racing. Interestingly, Yates' shop became available when he moved his ops to Charlotte to be closer to ... Roush.

At the time PE signed a 2 year lease to occupy the building. As it turned out, the team was only there for a year before moving to Statesville as part of the merger into Gillett Evernham Racing. Obviously, the team only stayed there 1 year. I have no idea if King or Gillett had to pay the building's owner the extra year of rent.

I looked up the property records Sunday to see if I could learn more about the property. Iridell County property tax records show the building is owned by Talbert Pointe LLC with Eel River Racing as the occupant.

I couldn't even remember a team called Eel River & had to Google them. A guy named Jack Birmingham bought the failing Bahari Racing in late 1999. Birmingham built the shop at 114 Byers Creek Rd, renamed Bahari to Eel River Racing, and ran the team in 2000-2001 before shutting it down.

Somewhere along the way, Yates apparently bought the building from Birmingham - or perhaps a sizeable stake in it.I searched Talbert Pointe LLC and found Robert Yates is listed as the owner/director. So I guess King & Co. are back to leasing from Yates.

http://www.northcarolinacorps.com/corp/144696.html

One aspect of this planned move that I haven't heard news about yet is that 114 Byers Creek Rd is apparently currently occupied by Turner Scott Motorsports. Where they'll be going is anyone's guess.

Think of all the moves PE-RPM hashad..

• from Level Cross to Mooresville in 2008 (after PE sold to Boston Ventures)
• from Mooresville to Statesville in 2009 (after merging into Gillett Evernham and rebranding as RPM)
• from Statesville to Concord in 2010 (after RPM acquired Robert Yates Racing)
• from Concord back to Mooresville in 2015

Perhaps they could rename the team to be symbolic of the Old Testament nomads wandering in the desert for 40 years: Tabernacle Motorsports.

Either way, RPM getting away from the Roush campus? That's a win for me.

Here's a brief excerpt from an August 2000 article at the site www.greatercharlottebiz.com mentioning the Bahari shop becoming Eel River and pretty much crediting Chuck Rider and Bahari with creating the "Race City" persona for Mooresville, NC .

When I first read your post, it was my sincere hope that our member, Tim Leeming - "The Legend" - had already eaten, so as not to spoil his appetite when he read that RPM was again returning to the site where "you know who" once danced and pranced through the building when it was originally constructed.

I've often wondered if perhaps The Legend was once abducted by space aliens and had his mind wiped of all memory that NASCAR's dancing queen once lived with Richard and Lynda. Amazing how Richard's path continues to cross with that fellow. No cars have ever been built for "Sparkle Pony" in that building have they Chase?

If I've read this 2000 article accurately...

http://www.motorsport.com/nascar-cup/news/eel-river-racing-aowner-turns-businesses-around/

Jack Birmingham of Eel River Racing built the Mooresville shop AFTER he acquired Bahari.

The construction of a 78,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility is an example of Birmingham's strategy of assembling the best foundation from which to build a program. Within the Mooresville, N.C., team headquarters will be a fabrication shop, a chassis dynamometer room, a machine shop, a paint booth, a parts department, garages large enough house two transporters and four motor coaches, and two finish assembly rooms that accommodate at least 14 race cars in each. In addition, the building will house at least 15 administrative offices. The team is slated to move into the building in December. Eel River Racing currently fields the No. 27 Pontiac for rookie driver Mike Bliss. The team is headquartered in Mooresville, N.C., located just 30 miles north of Charlotte.

If that's the case, then Bahari Racing never operated out of it - thus no Michael Waltrip on the shop or dance floor at 114 Byers Creek Rd.

Legend just got his appetite back!!!

More history of the building from December 2002:

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2002/12/23/story8.html?page=all

Charlotte-based Robert Yates Racing Inc.will move both its Winston Cup teams into a newly purchased Mooresville headquarters next month, making southern Iredell County the home for all its operations.

Last month, Yates bought the former Eel River Racing building in Talbert Pointe Business Park for $4.2 million, and Yates Racing is in the process of moving its Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler teams into the facility.

Eel River Racing built the Talbert Pointe facility in late 2000 at an estimated cost of $5.5 million. Eel River, then based in Lakeside Business Park, moved a team into the building in early 2001, using the facility for the 2001 race season.

But the company subsequently had trouble finding sponsors, and it closed the Talbert Pointe shop earlier this year. Jack Birmingham, who also owns Steinway & Sons piano company, owned Eel River.

Before Petty Blue moved INTO the Mooresville shop in 2008, Eel River rolled a car for Mike Bliss OUT of that shop sponsored by the Little Blue Pill - a year before Mark Martin got the sponsorship.