Richard Petty to field Indy 500 entry for John Andretti

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Richard Petty will make his first foray into the Indianapolis 500 as an owner when he fields a car for John Andretti in next month's race. Petty will be joining fellow NASCAR team owners Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi at Indy.

A news conference is scheduled Monday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but details were confirmed Friday by a person familiar with the arrangement. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the deal has not been announced.

Andretti drove for the now-defunct family-owned Petty Enterprises team in NASCAR from 1998 through the middle of the 2003 season. He has driven in nine Indy 500s, including the last two - finishing 16th last year driving for Marty Roth - and 10 NASCAR races at the famed Brickyard.

His best finish in the 500 was fifth in 1991, while his top performance in the Cup event was seventh in his first year driving for Petty.

The 46-year-old racer, the nephew of longtime open-wheel star and Indy 500 winner Mario Andretti, has also driven sports cars and dragsters.

In 1994, he became the first driver to run both the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR event in Charlotte on the same day, finishing 10th at Indianapolis and crashing and finishing 36th at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Tony Stewart and Robby Gordon have both since done the double, but the grueling feat is no longer possible since Indianpolis changed its starting time several years ago.

Petty is a partner in NASCAR with George Gillett in Richard Petty Motorsports, the team formerly known as Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Gillett is not expected to be part of the Indy deal.

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, which runs the full IndyCar Series, will work with Petty at Indy, providing equipment and personnel.

The IndyCar Series is in St. Petersburg this week for the season-opening Honda Grand Prix.

~FoxSports~

Very cool. Good luck to John!

I hope they can give him a good car to run.

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Bad day for Andretti at Indy: It was a rough day for John Andretti [driver of the #34 Chevy in the Sprint Cup Series] trying to put Richard Petty's #43 entry into the field for the Indianapolis 500 during the second day of qualifying on Sunday. Andretti got into the wall during a practice run and wiped out the car. "We really wanted to get into the race today so we could work on our race set-up this coming week," he said. "We didn't want to battle to get into the race next weekend. We didn't get a quality run in qualifying, and we knew we would probably have to make another run today. It was frustrating. We worked on the chassis setup this afternoon to get a better balance. But, in practice, the car was a little too loose and we were making adjustments. I was going pretty hot into Turn One, which is always a tough corner, and I lost the back end."(Alabama Live)(5-11-2009)