MBNA Armed Forces Family 400 - Kyle Petty Notes

Kyle Petty Notes, Quotes: Dover 400

Beginning of NASCAR’s ‘travel season’

One of the top performers on the tricky “Monster Mile,” Kyle Petty and the #45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge team head to the high-banked one-mile Dover (Del.) International Speedway this week for Sunday’s Dover 400.

Thirteen active drivers - including Petty - have at least one race victory at Dover. Still, it is considered one of the most demanding speedways on the circuit.

Petty, 42, will be making his 657th career start this weekend. He is 11th on the all-time list in NASCAR Winston Cup career starts, and fourth among active drivers. His eight career victories place him 45th on NASCAR’s all-time list in Winston Cup wins. One of the most recognizable names in international motorsports, as is his sponsor, Georgia-Pacific, Petty’s driving career began with a five-race season in 1979. The native of Level Cross, N.C., has won over $16 million.

The thoughts of Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge driver Kyle Petty heading into Dover:

“For about 10 or 12 years, Dover has been the ‘spring break’ race in the schedule. It used to be you would run about 10 races all in the southeastern United States, and it would culminate with Charlotte. This weekend would start some serious travel races.

“It does now. With the bulk of the teams based in the Carolinas, there is a lot of travel over the next few months. You go to Dover, then to Pocono, then to Michigan, then to Sears Point before you get a week off.

“You run each race, and then you come back home. It doesn’t leave a ton of turnaround time. You run Dover, and the truck gets back to the shop sometime Monday morning. You unload, start putting the Pocono stuff in and have it ready to go by Thursday morning at the latest. Things are fine - unless you have a problem at Dover, or a problem getting home because of bad traffic or mechanical problems or something along those lines. Then you have really got to hustle.

“That’s the whole deal with the travel schedule. Everything tends to work out fine as long as everything is working out fine. It’s the unexpected that can really mess things up. At the end of this June stretch, for example, we bring the truck back from Michigan, reload and send it off to Sears Point. There is enough time to get everything done you need to get done. The road course cars are already ready and everything is ready to load by the time the truck gets in. Any trouble at all between Michigan and Level Cross, or between Level Cross and Sonoma, and it can really slow you down. And that’s a lot of miles there, lots of places where trouble can come up - weather, accidents, construction, and about everything you can think of.

“Acclimating to the different tracks is not that big of a deal, for the driver or the crews. By the time we get to Dover, we already know what car we are going to run, the basic setup we are going to start with, and what directions we will probably go from there. Same thing with Pocono, even though it is entirely different, and with Michigan and Sears Point.

“The key to all of that is preparation. The guys in the shop are working well ahead of time, and the road guys are thinking ahead as well. But the thing is, you have a constant with every track. We go to Dover and we know it is a mile in length, what the banking is, how many laps the race will be, things like that. We even have a pretty good idea of what to expect with the weather, heat and humidity.

“You don’t have a whole lot of absolutes moving that transporter around. You have a set amount of time to move a lot of equipment - into the transporter, down the highway, out of the transporter, then reload it and run it again. At the track, you can control almost everything as far as what happens with your team. On the road, there isn’t much control.

“It’s a tough travel month in a lot of ways but we can handle the things we can prepare for - everything on the track. It’s just the off-the-track stuff that gets difficult.

“But if we get a few breaks off the track, on the track it might be a pretty good month for the Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge team.”

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