If this is true, and not an elaborate hoax, Raikkonen would be wise to be wary. Gillett ran the day-to-day operations at Richard Petty Motorsports last year and ran the organization into the ground. Foster and his father, George Gillett, left hundreds of creditors and former employees holding the bag at RPM.
This is the same Foster Gillett who introduced himself to driver Carl Edwards by trying to "borrow" Edwards' four-wheeler in the driver/owner coach lot at Homestead—without permission.
"I hear my little Polaris Razor start up—I hear the exhaust start up," Edwards told Sporting News the day after the incident in November 2009. "'Who's in my four-wheeler?' So I run out the door, and here's these two guys—and I don't know who they are—and they're getting ready to take off. I say, 'Hey, hey, who are you?'
One of the guys was Foster Gillett, but that was a mere peccadillo compared with some of the larger consternation the Gillett family has left in its wake.
The Gilletts are hated in England for the bungling of their ownership/management of the Liverpool soccer side in the English Premier League. In 2008, George Gillett spoke of death threats against his family from the club's fans, threats Gillett said arose primarily from comments made by his estranged partner in the team, Texas billionaire Tom Hicks.
George Gillett didn't win many friends in Montreal when, according to Forbes, he leveraged the Bell Centre for $240 million after acquiring 80.1-percent interest in the Canadiens, as well as the building. A reported $72 million of that money found its way to Gillett's pocket as a dividend.
Ultimately, Gillett sold the Canadiens to the Molson family for a tidy profit. He wasn't as fortunate in Liverpool, where he lost the team to John Henry's New England Sports Ventures in a forced sale through the Royal Bank of Scotland, which had loaned more than $350 million to Gillett and Hicks.
Some reports describe Foster Gillett as an investor in the deal with Raikkonen. With what money? Ray Evernham recently sued two companies owned by George Gillett for $19.2 million Evernham alleges is owed from the original sale of majority interest in Evernham Motorsports to Gillett.
Gillett walked away from a reported $90 million loan from Wachovia/Wells Fargo that was used to purchase Evernham Motorsports, which became RPM after a merger with Petty Holdings. Investors Andrew Murstein and Douglas Bergeron bought the loan for pennies on the dollar ($11 million, according to a Forbes report), and after Richard
Petty made a substantial investment of his own, the company returned to solvency. NASCAR will welcome Raikkonen with open arms. The Finnish driver is a bona fide superstar, and if he follows the plan of starting in the Camping World Truck and Nationwide Series before making a decision about competing in Sprint Cup, he's approaching the transition in a prudent way.
One has to wonder, though, if there's any NASCAR news in Finland. Due diligence should have squelched involvement by Foster Gillett before it started.
Richard Petty barely escaped having his name and reputation permanently sullied through association with the Gillett family.
Raikkonen doesn't need to take the same risk—and he doesn't need to leave any four-wheelers sitting around after dark.
Source: SportingNews
Courtesy: sleenster
