Everything else being equal, Kyle can understand what Dale Jr. is thinking about these days – whether to re-sign with DEI or leave the family business to race for another team like Richard Childress Racing.

On one hand …

“I don’t think he has to leave DEI to get out from under his father’s shadow because I think he’s already out from under his father’s shadow.,” Petty told Yahoo! Sports. “I think he’s his own individual.”

But on the other hand …

“Maybe for him to establish who he is in his head, it’s important for him [to leave],” Petty said.

Making a decision to leave ultimately could be harder than the actual move itself. For Petty, all he ever knew was Petty Enterprises, a situation not too dissimilar to what the Earnhardt is facing.

“It’s different to go to a place and go to a group that’s not under the umbrella of where you’ve always been,” Petty said. “I grew up hanging out at this race shop. I grew up working on these race cars. I grew up driving these race cars. So then to go drive somewhere totally different, it didn’t even look like a race shop to me.

“[Dale Jr.'s] been the same way. He grew up with his late model stuff, working out of his father’s Busch shop, with the Eurys – Junior and Senior – and doing all that and then all of a sudden, boom, to go somewhere else, it’s going to be totally different if he does it.”

Dale Earnhardt built DEI primarily for Dale Jr., his sister Kelly, half-sister Taylor and half-brother Kerry and their respective futures. Likewise, Richard Petty wanted his son to continue the family business.

But without enough money to successfully field another car for Kyle, Richard Petty knew his son leaving the team might be the best thing for him in the long run.

So Kyle left Petty Enterprises following the 1984 season and spent four seasons driving for the Wood Brothers, where he earned his first two career Cup wins. He then jumped to Felix Sabates Racing in 1989, where he remained through the 1996 season, winning six races along the way.

“It was probably a real good [experience] for him,” Richard Petty said. “I think it got him out from the shadow of Lee Petty and Richard Petty and let him be his own man. It probably was the best thing to happen to him personally.”

Leaving the family for a dozen years actually helped Kyle, now president of and driver for Petty Enterprises, grow in a way that he might not have been able to had he stayed in the Petty camp.

“[Leaving] helped me a lot, because you have to make a lot of decisions – and they’re your decisions, they’re not a group decision,” Kyle Petty said. “I think when you go out on your own, the decisions you make are for you; they’ll be for Kyle Petty, they’ll be for Dale Jr. and his family and his future. I think it broadens your perspective.”

While leaving Petty Enterprises helped Kyle grow as both a driver and person, there is something missing: none of his eight career Cup victories came while driving under the family business banner.

Still, getting his prodigal son back was all that counted, Richard Petty insists.

“We were happy and he was happy when he returned,” The King said. “It was one of those deals where he sort of went and did his own thing and he was ready to come home.”

To which Kyle readily agrees.

“Yeah, you can go home,” he said. “Remember, the front door may be closed, but the back door is always open at home. That’s what I tell people all the time, you can go back. There’s nothing to say that Junior can’t leave and go back to DEI at some point.”

Junior, in fact, could leave and then come back and buy DEI sometime down the road.

“I think when you look at it from that perspective, I don’t think it should be that traumatic for him or racing in general if he does leave,” Petty said.

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