NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Richard Petty may still be in NASCAR but as far as his son, Kyle Petty, is concerned, the family owned organization ceased to exist last season when it moved away from its birthplace in Level Cross, N.C.

And regardless of his father's involvement at the newly formed team with Gillett Evernham Motorsports, the spirit of Petty Enterprises cannot be recreated.

“

Petty Enterprises, when they left Level Cross, N.C., it became just another race team, they weren't Petty Enterprises anymore.

”

KYLE PETTY

"Petty Enterprises, when they left Level Cross, N.C., it became just another race team, they weren't Petty Enterprises anymore. So when I look at where our sport is and my father's business is, we've not existed in the guise of Petty Enterprises for a year or more because we moved away from where we were," said Kyle Petty, while attending the Sprint Sound & Speed event to benefit his Victory Junction Gang Camp.

Following the 2007 season, Petty Enterprises chose to move from the hallowed ground near Petty's childhood home to the old Robert Yates Racing shop in Mooresville, N.C., in an effort to be close to NASCAR's hub and attract more quality employees.

Richard Petty hoped the move would help return the racing team to the level of success it once enjoyed years ago, when it was winning 268 races and 10 championships. But two mergers between Petty Enterprises and first Boston Ventures in June 2008 and ultimately Gillett Evernham Motorsports have proven to be necessary to survive.

It was a string of events that left Kyle without ride and for the first time since the late 1990s, a Petty would not be behind the wheel of a Petty-affiliated team.

"I have been unemployed since June. I was pretty much told that around June or July that there was no place for me at Petty Enterprises moving forward to 2009 with Boston Ventures," Kyle said.

Still, he is not upset.

"There is no bitterness. I think there would be bitterness, let me be real clear -- if I come across bitter, I apologize -- because there is no bitterness at all," he said. "If I was 22 years old I would be bitter as hell, OK. I'm 48 years old. I'm at the back side of a career, not the front side. So everything runs its course, it is a part of life. I started doing TV two years ago anticipating this day would come and I would not be a full-time driver and I would have to go do something else."

That something else will include some Grand-Am races and returning to the broadcast booth with TNT this summer. "And maybe if the opportunity to drive a Cup car toward the end of the year, but I'm not running full time," he added.

The details of the merger between Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises are still being hammered out; including the name of the operation, but Kyle believes the spirit of his father's team is still in Level Cross.

"The 43 and Richard Petty is at GEM, but not Petty Enterprises. So as far as I'm concerned the last year Petty Enterprises was in existence which I consider was 2007," he said.

With all things considered, Kyle Petty still believes the merger will be a plus for his father and the team.

"He'll be apart of it," he said. "But it's not the history of the place that you see when you go to Level Cross where my grandfather [Lee Petty] worked, where Marvin Panch drove, Buddy Baker drove and guys like that."