|
-
Kyle Petty |
By JIM McCONNELL
In the pantheon of motorsports legends, the name Petty is synonymous with greatness.
Family patriarch Lee Petty established a standard of excellence during NASCAR's infancy. He finished 17th in the fledgling organization's first race on June 19, 1949, and went on to win 46 races and three series championships.
His son, Richard, took winning to another level. "The King" piloted the famed red-and-light blue No. 43 car to 127 career poles, a record 200 Winston Cup race victories and seven points titles.
But at some point after Richard Petty won his final race on July 4, 1984, at Daytona, the Petty family lost the map to Victory Lane.
Richard's son, Kyle, has won 18 races in his NASCAR career while dealing gracefully with the enormous pressure of filling his father's shoes.
In the last 22 years, however, Petty Enterprises has won just three races on NASCAR's top national series. With the passing of each subpar season, the emergence of powerhouse operations Hendrick, Roush, Penske and Gibbs threatened to do the unthinkable: render the Pettys irrelevant as a legitimate NASCAR competitor.
"We lost a lot of deals when the big corporations came in," Richard Petty recalled last Friday at Daytona International Speedway.
"We don't have anything other than the racing business. These other people came in and they've got things beyond racing. They know so many people in so many walks of life that they can tap into. That makes them a stronger team even though we've got the same amount of money."
Always a straight shooter, Richard Petty hasn't tried to duck responsibility for Petty Enterprises' struggles. He admitted that he "lost the edge" in the mid-1980s, and also acknowledged that he was too slow to adjust when NASCAR evolved beyond its regional Southern roots.
"We always did everything in the backyard and we were fairly successful with the thing. Then it started being a bigger and bigger business--bringing more people in, more money, more technology," Petty said. "We still sat there in the backyard.
"By the time we got ready to do something about it, we were so far behind on our money and our engineering and all that stuff, it's just taken a little time to get it going."
Kyle Petty's son, Adam, was Petty Enterprises' brightest hope for the future. A gifted racer, the 19-year-old was well on his way to picking up his family's racing torch when he died in a crash at Loudon, N.H., on May 7, 2000.
The race team still hasn't recovered.
Last year, both of Petty Enterprises' drivers--Kyle Petty and Jeff Green--finished outside the top 25 in the Nextel Cup points standings. They combined for only two top-10 finishes in 72 starts.
So the Pettys decided to totally overhaul their operation.
The first move was to hire Robbie Loomis, who was Jeff Gordon's crew chief during the last of his four Cup-winning seasons in 2001, as executive vice president of race operations.
Loomis, in turn, landed a "name" driver to pilot the No. 43 car: Bobby Labonte, the 2000 Cup champion for Joe Gibbs Racing.
After Labonte signed with Petty, Todd Parrott came aboard as Labonte's crew chief. Parrott guided Dale Jarrett to the 1999 Cup title.
The three proven professionals joined forces with NASCAR veteran Paul Andrews (already in place as the crew chief of Kyle Petty's No. 45) to give Petty Enterprises' racing operations a fresh, successful new face.
"When we looked at it, we'd made very little progress the last four or five years and we just weren't going in the right direction. We really had to go outside our circle," Kyle Petty said. "When we hired Robbie that was huge, and then when we hired Bobby that was even bigger. Then when Todd came that was just icing on the cake. I think everybody focused on those three guys, and that's good. I'm glad everybody is focused on those three guys.
"Along with those three guys came a multitude of other guys--new shock guys, new guys for the pit crew, new guys that work at the shop that wanted to be a part of working with Robbie Loomis and Bobby Labonte and Todd Parrott. I think in a lot of ways we're cautiously optimistic."
Labonte's presence gives the Pettys reason to believe they can put the legendary No. 43 car back where so many race fans believe it belongs--in Victory Lane.
"It's just going to be a huge deal. There have only been a few cars like that, that has been around for that many years and has that tradition behind it, and driving one of them is [an] awesome feeling," Labonte said. "We know that we got a lot of hard work in front of us. But know that we're all excited and think that we can all go out there and do really well."
For the first time in a long time, both Petty drivers were legitimate contenders to win last Sunday's Daytona 500. Labonte qualified fifth and finished fourth in the second Gatorade Duel qualifying race, while Petty was among the fastest cars in practice last week and placed sixth in his qualifying race.
Both fell prey to bad breaks, however.
Petty had a strong run going when Jarrett tapped Green coming out of turn 3 on lap 79. Trying to avoid Green's spinning car, Petty dove to the bottom of the track but wound up in the path of an onrushing Carl Edwards, who barreled into Petty and destroyed the sheet metal on the driver's side of the 45 car.
Petty eventually made it back onto the track, but finished 30 laps down in 39th place--just four spots behind his teammate.
Labonte started from the rear of the field due to an engine change, but clawed his way through traffic and was running in the top 10 when Jamie McMurray and Jeff Burton collided five laps from the finish. Caught up in the mêlee, Labonte's car was too damaged to continue and he wound up 35th.
It wasn't the kind of result Petty Enterprises was looking for, but nobody is panicking as the Nextel Cup Series heads to California this weekend.
"We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we had a good race up to that point," Labonte said.
Added Kyle Petty: "You can gain a little momentum if you come out of here good, and you can lose a little momentum. We've got so much momentum at the race shop, I'm not sure we'd lose momentum after 10 races."
To reach JIM McCONNELL:
Email: jmcconnell@freelancestar.com
AUTO CLUB 500 Sunday, 3:30 in Fontana, Calif. |
