Richard Petty Motorsports makes offer to Clint Bowyer

Andrew Murstein, owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “Press Pass’’ that the team has made an offer to free agent Clint Bowyer, who is in the final year of his contract with Richard Childress Racing.

Murstein was asked about hopes in expanding the two-car team (which has drivers Marcos Ambrose and AJ Allmendinger). This is what Murstein said on the national radio show Saturday:

“I really hope so. When we had that media day opportunity back at the beginning of the year, I perhaps went a little bit further than I should and I said that we wanted to add a third team pretty quickly and Danica and Clint Bowyer came to mind. Afterward, Richard said, “Are you sure you want to make those aggressive assumptions?’Again it goes back to me having such confidence in these guys that they can deliver almost anything. We’ve been thinking about the third team for the last six months or so. I don’t know if it will be Clint. It’s no secret that I like Clint and Richard likes him and I think he would be a great fit for our organization.

“We never even had these conversations over the last couple of years. Richard had told me that drivers had not been approaching him for driving because, perhaps, he wasn’t as good as he is today. I think it’s a great accomplishment to 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 we’re waiting to hear back from him.’’

Asked about sponsorship for a third car, Murstein said:

“To Richard’s credit, he likes new ideas. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we formed this partnership would he be set in his ways, he’s been so successful over the last 50 years in this sport. To his credit, he’s really open-minded. One of the things I suggested was, let’s set up an office in New York, just like NASCAR has an office in New York. I’m kind or surprised more team owners don’t also have dual offices, New York and Charlotte. We’re really making a big push to get new sponsors. I hired five people in the last six months. I’m trying to get ahead of the curve and sell a third car even before we have the driver lined up. That said, Clint has one or two sponsors who I think will follow him wherever he goes. His name and reputation are great and these sponsors really like him. So, I’m not really worried about the sponsor for him. I think that if we signed him, we’d have a sponsor 30 days after signing him.’’

Certainly another option for RPM if it expands is adding Ricky Stenhouse Jr. RPM’s affiliation with Roush Fenway Racing _ which supplies chassis and technical information _ would make it easy to move Stenhouse over there. Roush Fenway Racing already has Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle under contract for next year. David Ragan also is under contract for next year but the deal with sponsor UPS is up after this season. So, that’s left some questions about Ragan’s status. With Stenhouse leading the Nationwide points, he is showing he is deserving of a Cup ride. The question is where?

COMMENTS ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here; comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its websites. Users must follow agreed-upon rules: Be civil, be clean, be on topic; don't attack private individuals, other users or classes of people. Read the full rules here.
- Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the report violation link below it.