Petty finally sign Allmendinger

The Californian drove for Gillett Evernham Motorsports in the last five races of the 2008 season, and was among the drivers introduced by the team last week when they announced they were changing the outfit's name to Richard Petty Motorsports.

However, no deal had been signed yet between the team and Allmendinger, despite the team announcing they would start the season with the former Champ Car winner in the No.44 Dodge.

The former Red Bull racer had been rumoured to replace Elliot Sadler in the team earlier this year, but in the end the two settled their differences and Sadler was confirmed as the driver of the No. 19 Dodge.

The team have now put a deal in place to run Allmendinger this year, with an option to retain him in 2010.

"This is pretty awesome news for me," said Allmendinger. "I just want to get behind the wheel of a race car and race. We have a lot of work to do on the track and need to sell some sponsorship, but this team has great equipment and I think there is a lot of chemistry here based on how we did at the end of last season.

"I cannot put into words how excited I am to run the No.44 in 2009. I raced with these guys five times last year and loved everything about it. The cars were great, the guys were great and we put up some pretty good results. I'm just very grateful to have this opportunity."

Despite signing the deal with Allmendinger the team still have to put a budget together to run him during the whole season. Right now the funding only goes until the eighth race of the season, plus next week's Bud Shootout at Daytona and the Coke Zero 400 in July, also at Daytona.

"AJ has a ton of potential," said team owner Richard Petty. "I went testing with him a few weeks ago. When he climbed out of the car I think he went to everyone working on the car asking them questions and wanting to know what was going on.

"That's the kind of thing you want out of your driver. He's a young guy and I think we can help him and he can help us."

Allmendinger's signing means the team intend to run four full-time cars during the season. The other three are the No.9 of Kasey Kahne, the No.19 of Sadler and the No.43 of Reed Sorenson.