Dodge/Save Mart 350 - Kyle Petty Notes

DODGE/SAVE MART 350: Road courses through eyes of one who likes them

Kyle Petty and the #45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge team head to the Infineon Raceway road course, located near Sonoma, Calif., this week for Sunday’s Dodge/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race.

Petty, 44, will be making his 694th 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 the Dodge/Save Mart 350:

“I like road courses. That’s not going to surprise a lot of people but I just like them. They break up the ovals, they are challenging and they are fun to drive.

“A series with nothing but ovals wouldn’t be as fun, and it wouldn’t carry the same prestige, I don’t think. A series with nothing but road courses would be the same way.

“One of the great things about the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series is that we run on so many different types of tracks. We run short tracks, intermediate tracks, superspeedways and road courses. Even the tracks in the different groups are different from each other. Martinsville and Bristol, for example, are both short tracks and both just over half-a-mile in length, but that’s where the similarities end. Bristol is banked high and, because of that, the speeds are a lot greater. Martinsville is banked only a little, so that puts a premium on braking.

“Infineon and Watkins Glen are both road courses but they are different too. The length is different, obviously, but the way you approach each of them is different as well. Watkins Glen is almost a disjointed oval with a majority of right-hand turns. Infineon puts more of a ‘trick’ into it, with that hard right-hand turn at the top of the hill, and that hairpin Turn 11. That doesn’t mean one is any better than the other, just different.

“Infineon is not as forgiving as Watkins Glen. Even though they have increased the runoff areas in a lot of spots, you have to be extra careful in several different areas. There are several spots where, if you get off the pavement just a little bit, it could grab hold of you and tear your car up. You might consider ‘short-cutting’ a couple of turns, letting your right front or left front ease off the pavement a little bit, but for the most part, you need to keep it on the pavement.

“I’ve never liked that old racing saying, ‘Sometimes you have to run slow to go fast,’ because I don’t think it’s true. But sometimes you have to run deliberately to run fast, and sometimes you have to take the cautious route to make your car go faster. That really comes into play at road courses, and especially at Infineon.

“This is a bigger race than some people give it credit for being. While we are north of San Francisco, this is one of the biggest markets on the circuit and it’s important to our sponsors and to a lot of racing fans. For a lot of fans, this is the only chance they get to see us race each year. The next closest track for Cup racing would be Fontana, and that’s almost 500 miles away. For a lot of fans, if they are going to see a Cup race in 2004, it’s going to be at Infineon. For that reason alone I’m glad we run there.

“Plus, it’s fun. Hey, there are tons of people who pay a lot of money to come to this very same area for vacations. This is our job but we end up spending four or five days in the same area and come for business reasons. True, we have to work most of each day but, still, it’s a great area to visit. Bruton (Smith) and his people have worked hard to make the speedway better and better, and it gets a little better every year. I remember the first time we came out here and, when you compare that to what we see now, it’s night and day. We didn’t even have garages our first few trips to Infineon. They’ve added that, new grandstands, redone the course a few times . . . essentially, they’ve done everything they could to make the track better.

“We’re planning on a good weekend at Infineon for this Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge team. Like I said, I like road courses."