EA Sports 500 - Kyle Petty Notes

Kyle Petty Notes, Quotes: EA Sports 500
‘Run hard for 168 laps, then run harder from there’

One of the most experienced drivers at the treacherous 2.66-mile Talladega (Ala.) SuperSpeedway, Kyle Petty and the #45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge team head to the famed speedway this week for Sunday’s EA Sports 500.

Petty has seen the highs and the lowest of lows at the fast speedway. He was one of the first to be caught up in “the big one” once restrictor plates came into play for NASCAR at Talladega and Daytona Beach, Fla., but has shown a strong tendency to run at the front of the pack in most races there.

Petty, 43, will be making his 673rd career start this weekend. He is 10th 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 $17 million.

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

“I’ve always said driving a car around Talladega is not that big of a deal. Even at 190 miles per hour, you could probably pull somebody out of the grandstands and with a minimal amount of instruction, get them up to a pretty good speed pretty fast. Doing that with 42 cars out there, well, that’s kind of where the trick comes in.

“It’s kind of like an airline pilot. He doesn’t earn his money for putting the plane on auto-pilot once you reach 35,000 feet. He gets the money for being able to take off and land, and if there is ever a problem. Anybody can sit there and fly the thing on auto-pilot. Throw in a thunderstorm and see how many volunteers you get.

“Now there is a difference between getting a car up to a good speed and being able to qualify it. Qualifying is pretty much a crew chiefs’ race or an engine builder’s race. You have engine builders out there trying to find every hundredth of an ounce of horsepower they can find, and crew chiefs waxing and polishing and re-polishing the car, anything to find another hundredth of a second here or there.

“The driver’s job in qualifying is to get the engine wound up as tight as you can on the first lap, and then hit all of your marks perfectly on the second lap. A lot of qualifying boils down to the car . . . most of qualifying boils down to the car. But to get the most out of the car, you have to hit the marks perfectly.

“Once the race starts, things change. Sometimes they change pretty drastically.

“The race itself is, for most of it, a two-man deal. The driver can’t do it alone. Communicating with the spotter and being able to stay out of trouble and make good decisions is what it is all about. The spotter is going to be able to judge the lines – which one is moving the fastest, which one has the best cars in it – better than anybody else. You can make some decisions on your own. You know with which car you are running the best, and with who you can run in front of and with who you can run behind. But picking the right line is the key to moving up in the pack.

“Sometimes – not all of the time but sometimes – a good spotter can get you through some trouble. It’s tough. The cars are bunched up pretty tightly and if one gets sideways, a lot of people are going to get a piece of it. Lucky is getting through with minimal damage. Miraculous is getting through it with no damage. Once the ‘big one’ happens, there is some skill and intuition in getting through it. But luck plays the biggest role.

“The rules changes should help a little but when you have 43 cars that qualify that close together, it’s tough to separate them. The draft pulls you all back together. Anything you can do to spread the cars out a little, and still give them the ability to pass, is going to be good. The fact that we might be in a position where you can crack the throttle a little and not lose everything should help a lot. But it’s still going to be tough racing, the stuff Talladega calls ‘white-knuckle’ racing. You have to run hard, you have to stay wide open, you have to make good decisions, and you hope for the best.

“It is still going to be one of those races where you run as hard as you can for the first 168 laps, and then see where you are with 20 laps to go. You work from that point to get the best finishing position you can but the key is to be around with 20 laps to go, and be on the lead lap.

“That’s what we’re looking for this weekend from this Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge bunch, and we think it’s going to be a good weekend for us.”

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