Aaron’s 499 - Kyle Petty Notes

Kyle Petty Notes, Quotes: Talladega 500

One of few who remember life before restrictor plates

One of a handful of drivers who know what Talladega racing is like without restrictor plates, Kyle Petty and the Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge team head to the 2.66-mile Alabama superspeedway this week for Sunday’s 500-mile NASCAR Winston Cup race.

Speeds had moved well past 200 miles per hour in May, 1987, at Talladega - the pole being won at over 212 miles per hour - after which NASCAR mandated smaller carburetors for the major superspeedway events at Talladega and Daytona. The following season, the first restrictor plates appeared on NASCAR Winston Cup cars at the same tracks.

Petty was one of the few currently active drivers who raced at those tremendous speeds, then raced with the smaller carburetors and a variety of sizes of restrictor plates.

Petty, 42, will be making his 653rd 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 Talladega:

“You really can’t remember the difference between Talladega without restrictor plates and Talladega with restrictor plates. Yeah, you know there is a difference and you can kind of gauge it off what the car felt at, say, Atlanta or Texas and compare it to what it feels like at Talladega or Daytona. The thing is the racing was different back in the 80's (at Talladega).

“I sit there and think, ‘Hey, let’s go back to running without the plates again,’ but I don’t think anybody knows for sure what kind of can of worms that is going to start. We’ve reached the point now where there aren’t too many of these guys (drivers) who have been on the biggest tracks without plates, so they don’t really know what to expect. The guys who have run without them, it’s been so long they don’t really remember.

“The only thing left to do is write down the list of goals - close racing . . . spreading the cars further apart so they aren’t all on top of each other if there is a wreck . . . keeping the speeds manageable . . . - things like that, and then see what you have to do to reach them. That’s what NASCAR has been doing - trying to reach their goals and changing and tweaking the rules some to do that. I might not always agree with how they go about it and other drivers and teams might not always agree with how they go about it - but as long as they are headed in the direction we all want to go in, then it’s hard to complain too much.

“The whole deal at Talladega is air - how you can move it, how well you move through it and how much of it you can avoid. The cars that can do that the best are the ones who end up at the front on Friday afternoon (qualifying) and again on Sunday.

“Everything everybody does is around the aero package. You want the slickest car you can get, anything you can do to slice through the air the best. I’ve had crews suggest everything short of me leaning down some in the seat to cut the drag back on these cars at Talladega.

“Horsepower is everything in these restrictor plate races up to a point. You eventually reach a point where you are maxed out on what you can get horsepower-wise. You scrimp and search, trying to find a few extra horsepower here or there. But there is only so much air you can get through those plates, so there is only so much horsepower there.

“The rest of your speed comes from your aero package. You feel sometimes that just a little bit of body paint in the wrong place can cost you at Talladega. The guys waxing the cars get more scrutiny from the crew chiefs at Talladega than any other track on the circuit. You want the car to look good everywhere - it has to be just right with the wax to run fast at Talladega.

“Remember you are trying to find just another 10 horsepower to move from bad to good or to move from good to great. You can work all day and maybe find part of that in the engine, or work all day and maybe find part of that in your aero. But find part of it in your engine and part of it in your aero, and life gets a whole lot easier - and you have a better chance of finding even more than you thought you could find.

“Qualifying is the first place that whole deal comes together. It’s just you, the car and the air. It’s all horsepower and aero with somebody sitting in the driver’s seat pushing the gas pedal. If you can turn the steering wheel and keep the line, you’ve done all you can do as far as qualifying is concerned.

“The race itself, well, that usually becomes a series of questions, most of them starting with ‘How in the heck. . . ?’ You might be sitting in the outside line and moving up fast coming out of the second turn and by the time you get to Three, you are on the inside line and holding your own. You might be in the middle and holding on coming out of Four, and leading your line of cars by the time you get to the trioval.

“There is more three and four-wide racing at Talladega than just about anywhere. You watch that stuff on TV and think, ‘Hey, must be as easy as running inside or outside,’ but it’s a different world in the middle. Even when you reach a degree of comfort there, you wonder about the guy beside you and the guy in front of you. If he is moving around a bunch, it doesn’t matter what you are able to do. You’ve got to get past him, wish him the best and move on.

“Things are a lot different than they were in the pre-plate days. The speeds were incredible. In the car, things kind of got relative. Speed is a relative thing. You’re driving 55 miles per hour down the Interstate and you look down and see you’re running 70, so you have to slow up. You get used to it. If you’ve been driving in a 70 miles per hour zone and go to a 55 miles per hour zone, it feels like you’re crawling. These race cars are a lot like that as far as speed is concerned. If you’re running 190 miles per hour, the speed kind of comes to you and you don’t have that sensation. We were like that at 210 or 215 or whatever we were racing at. It’s when problems started that the speed got to be a problem. Going straight ahead at 215 miles per hour isn’t that big of a deal after awhile. Going sideways after running 215 is a major deal, believe me.

“We’ve moved on. The whole sport has moved on. It’s a lot more strategy and finding the right line in the draft and things like that now. And like everybody else, that’s what this Georgia-Pacific Dodge group will be concentrating on at Talladega.”

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