Food City 500 - Kyle Petty Notes

Kyle Petty Notes, Quotes: Food City 500
‘The place is a giant television studio’

Kyle Petty and the #45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge team head to the fast, high-banked .533-mile Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway this week for Sunday’s Food City 500 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race.

Petty, 43, will be making his 684th career start this weekend. He is 10th on the all-time list in NASCAR Cup career starts, and fourth among active drivers. His eight career victories place him 45th on NASCAR’s all-time list in 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 $18 million.

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

“You hear all of the talk about adding new tracks and adding new markets, and that is something NASCAR – all of us – should be concerned with. This series has grown tremendously, especially over the past few years, and we’ve added a lot of new markets, and brought in new fans along the way. That’s been a good deal for all of us. Adding places like southern California and Kansas City and Chicago is a big deal, and it adds greater value for sponsors like Georgia-Pacific or Brawny or Coca-Cola or Cheerios.

“Bristol, let’s face it, isn’t exactly Los Angeles when it comes to market size but it’s an important place for the series too. This is one of those tracks that really grabs the race fan’s imagination, and it has some great shows.

“Look at Bristol as a giant television studio. The studio audience just happens to be 130,000 people or so – but this crowd doesn’t need ‘applause’ signs. They know who they love and they know who they don’t. They are into the race, into the whole ‘Bristol experience,’ well before race time.

“The race itself, well, it can get pretty wild. At times, it can be kind of fun. Other times – like this race last year – it’s not so much fun. It’s hard to believe you can go that fast at a half-mile, but you are really moving. When you stop like I did, it hurts. Man, it was one of those hits that I was still feeling a week or so later. But as fast as we run there, it’s easy to see how those kinds of wrecks could happen.

“Running well at Bristol is fun, a lot more fun than being the Sports Center highlight that evening. It’s a constant of turning left, turning left, turning left. You never seem to straighten the car out. I know they have two straightaways there because I’ve seen them, but after 500 laps there you are hard-pressed to remember ever actually being on them. It’s a constant of turning lap, staying low, getting what you can get.

“The ‘bump-and-run’ is probably the preferred passing method. You tap the guy in front of you a little bit, maybe get him a little loose in the corner and then duck underneath. By the midway point of the race, you have moved from the ‘bump-and-run’ to the ‘hit-and-get-out-of-my-way.’ The passing hits seem to get a lot harder the later you get into the race. Guys get frustrated and tempers start flaring.

“Keeping your temper is pretty important. Guys are going to rub and beat and bang at Bristol. It’s just the way the place is. If a guy hits you and you can kind of let it go – or at least not let it dictate the way you drive and the way you run your race – you’re a lot further along than most everybody else. It’s hard to do, believe me. But it’s pretty key to having a good race and a good finish.

“We’re progressing and we’re doing some good things with this Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge. We think we can have a good car at Bristol and, with a little bit of luck, a pretty good finish too. It’s a place where Petty Enterprises cars have run well, especially in the last few years, and we’re looking forward to seeing what we can do this week.”