Cup car stolen UPDATE 3 Petty and Yates? new Petty engine supplier: At sometime over the past weekend someone stole an official Winston Cup race car from a race team’s parking lot. Investigators are not saying which team owns the car. But they are saying the car is worth $200,000. Investigators say it was locked inside a white trailer when someone pulled up, hooked it up and drove off. The team is expected to announce the theft soon, ask for help finding it, and offer a very substantial reward to get it back.(NBC6.com)(9-28-2001) UPDATE: quite a twist from NASCAR.com’s Buzz – The Buzz has learned that the car was stolen from the property of Robert Yates Racing. It wasnt a Yates car, though, but a dyno chassis car owned by Petty Enterprises. So, what was a Petty car doing at Yates? Well, the two teams may be making some sort of announcement in the next couple of weeks regarding either a joint venture or new ownership of an existing division of Yates. The current ownership of all race teams for both teams will remain the same.(NASCAR.com)(9-29-2001) UPDATE 2: hearing that Yates is helping Petty design heads and is looking at supplying Dodge engines to Pettty next year UPDATE 3: Petty Enterprises will get engines for its 2002 Winston Cup teams (#’s 43,44,45) from a company being spun off of Robert Yates’ engine manufacturing business. Mike Ege, general manager and chief engine builder at Robert Yates Engine Manufacturing, has acquired that company and will rename it Mike Ege Racing Engines. That company will supply engines to the three Petty Enterprises Cup teams beginning next season. Ford teams (#’s 7, 11, 26, 32, 66, 90) that had been getting their engines from the subsidiary operation Ege was leading for Yates will start getting their motors directly from Robert Yates Racing, Inc., which also builds the engines for the two Yates-owned Cup teams of drivers Dale Jarrett and Ricky Rudd(That’s Racin’)(10-2-2001)
