Petty Riding A High Horse To Lone Star State
45 Dodge Team Moving Forward

This weekend, Kyle Petty and the #45 Wells Fargo Dodge team will head to the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) for Sunday’s Dickies 500.

This weekend’s race will mark the first time since “The Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship” started that the series will be competing on similar tracks in consecutive weeks. TMS, like Atlanta, is an ultra-competitive, 1.5-mile oval. In 11 races there have been 11 different winners at TMS.

Petty will be making his eighth start at TMS this weekend, meaning he is one of 11 drivers to have competed in every NEXTEL Cup event to be held at the Fort Worth (Tex.) track. His best finish of 17th came in the 1998 Texas 500.

Comments from Petty as he prepares for Sunday’s Dickies 500:
For the first time during The Chase the series is going to consecutive tracks that are very similar; 1.5-mile, high-speed ovals. What do you expect at Texas after a solid run at Atlanta?
“I expect us to go out and do it again. You are right, Texas and Atlanta are similar, but they are not identical. Two totally different things Texas has a good bit more overall grip and doesn’t chew tires up like Atlanta. But yes, theoretically, we should have another good day on Sunday in the Wells Fargo Dodge.”

“We have our old friend ‘Mo’ on our side right now. Momentum is a funny thing. When you have it you better bottle it up because you never know when it will come back. We are clicking as a team right now and, as a driver, that is a great feeling.”

Bill Wilburn continues to make great calls from the pit box. That comfort level has to creep into the driver’s seat.
“Billy has done a great job for us. You need communication with any crew chief. You need to know both of you are on the same page, it makes holding the wheel a lot less stressful. It keeps you from thinking you have to make calls from the car. I think Billy and I have had some great communication so far.”

“Wilburn continued to do that at Atlanta. We didn’t get a chance to qualify because of the rain and had to start 37th. He was able to make it better throughout the night. We didn’t have many cautions to work on the car, but we wound up with a 17th place finish. If you can grind out finishes like that, you can put yourself in a position to make The Chase. That is obviously where we want to be next season.”

You are only 63 points out of the top-35. Getting inside that magical number has to be a large priority.
“You know, it hasn’t been the end of the world for us. It made us work harder. It doesn’t give you a cushion to fall back on. It hasn’t been that bad for us. We made changes with the crew chiefs and that shook both teams up. I think it was a good change and we’ve seen the results of that. That’s what it’s all about. If it doesn’t work you make a change. We did that and this Wells Fargo Dodge is looking pretty good heading to Texas.”