Petty's Evernham power

The team runs two Dodge Intrepids for Jeff Green and Kyle Petty but has struggled to be consistently competitive this season.

"We are constantly looking for ways to improve our performance and to run better as a team," said Petty, who is also CEO of Petty Enterprises. "We at Petty Enterprises worked very closely with Evernham Motorsports to develop the Dodge programme. Ray has been very gracious in his comments about the role of Petty Enterprises in that effort.

"We have continued to work closely with Evernham and with Dodge on many aspects of our programME since then, and we see this alliance in the engine program as a natural evolution of our relationship.

"Evernham Motorsports has really moved into the forefront in regards to Dodge engine development and we're excited to be part of that," Petty continued. "We've made some big strides with our chassis and bodies, so this was obviously the next step."

In its fourth year of operation, Evernham Motorsports has one driver in the Chase for the Championship and runs Kasey Kahne who leads the Rookie of the Year standings.

"We have been working with Kyle and Petty Enterprises on behalf of Dodge the past four years, and they have a solid organisation. The chassis are pretty much where they want them to be," Evernham said. "We feel we can help them on the horsepower side as well, and help them continue to build their programme. We're all very excited at working even more closely with Petty Enterprises in 2005."