Petty suspends operations of #43 NXS team

Richard Petty Motorsports announced that the team suspended operations of the #43 Xfinity team due to financial issues with the team's primary sponsor, J. Streicher. Due to missed payments, Richard Petty Motorsports is forced to cut back the originally-planned full-time schedule for the NASCAR Xfinity Series #43 Ford Mustang driven by Jeb Burton. J. Streicher joined Richard Petty Motorsports late in the off-season for their first sponsorship in NASCAR supporting Burton's first full-time season in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Burton

and the team got to work, and just days after signing the agreement with J. Streicher, the team competed in the season opener at Daytona. The team tallied one Top-10 and four Top-15 finishes in the first 10 races of the season and currently is in position to compete for the Chase in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. "This is an unfortunate situation," said Richard Petty Motorsports CEO Brian Moffitt. "We make commitments to both our employees and vendors that are based on sponsor commitments, and we take those commitments seriously. We will pursue every avenue to ensure the contractual obligations between RPM and our sponsor are met. We'll take each week as it comes and do our best to get the #43 Ford Mustang on track as much as possible this season." Richard Petty Motorsports and Burton will continue their relationship and work to get Burton on track as much as possible this year. This weekend at Pocono Raceway, Burton will compete in the #32 Ford for GO FAS Racing in the Sprint Cup Series.(Richard Petty Motorsports)