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NASCAR WCUP: Kyle Petty/Robert Pressley Quotes from Winston Cup Preview

11 January 2001

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

KYLE PETTY (No. 45) Sprint

We're just talking with John about the fresh start of Dodges and a fresh start for Kyle this year. Your thoughts and impressions going into the year, Kyle.

I don't know. I thought you guys were going to be here earlier. Most all of us are in the first shift. I don't know I think obviously for us with three teams at Petty Enterprises it's been a lot of work for the guys t the shop this winter because we had to take all our cars and get rid of all the Pontiacs stuff and start all over again and we didn't use any of the chassis, didn't use any of the cars, didn't use a lot of the parts and pieces so started basically fresh so for those guys it's been hard and it is a fresh start. We don't have a ton of race cars built already you know but the guys are working incredibly hard.

We've got our Daytona stuff built. We're getting ready to go to Vegas. It's already gone to do our test there with our down force stuff so you now it's a different start, it's a different year obviously last year for a lot of reasons I would like to forget, but you know for us as a team, to move forward with Sprint and General Mills and with Georgia Pacific coming on board then it's a big year for us. But there are a lot of changes. You know basically this is Sprint's first year in Winston Cup racing, it's General Mill's first year full time with us in Winston Cup racing, Georgia Pacific - it's a first for them - it's a first for Dodge coming back into the sport so there's a lot of new stuff happening at Petty Enterprises so we're pretty optimistic about going into this year with all the firsts that we have.

Last year you were worried about Dodge being behind. Obviously they're trying to cram a lot into a year and a half or something like that. Are you starting the new year behind, how far behind and when will you catch up?

Twenty years behind. You have to look at it that way. You know you've got to look at if not from a error point of view and I'm not going to say from an error point of view but you've got to look at basically with both the Ford motor and Chevrolet motor, it's continued since 1979 to developed into what it is today. The Dodge development on a Winston Cup type motor stopped in 1979 and even when they came back and run the truck series, the engine itself was the 1979 model block and heads and yeah there was some advancements on that but it was advancements against the 18 degree the old Chevy motor and the old Ford motor so Dodge had to come in and redesign a block and redesign a set of heads and come up with an engine combination that they felt like they could hit the ground running and be competitive.

Are you behind? Yeah, you're behind in the sense that you've only had this piece of equipment for six or seven months to work on and until you get a good solid six months under your belt under race conditions and you get a lot of development time with it then you're not going to get caught up to some degree. I think we're really really confident in where we're at you know what I mean, but I still think from what we know the knowledge of what we have of the engine itself, and then what the potential of what the engine is, I think we're a little bit apprehensive of - there's still some unknowns out there. You know we don't know everything there is to know about the engine and you don't know what you can do with it and you don't know how far you can push it and that's something that we're going to have to do during the course of the year. It just so happens that a lot of time we're going to have to do it under race situations where you know you would hope that you would have been able to do it at a test or something but we kind of ran out of time because it got pushed towards the end of the year.

Want to ask you about what you're hoping to accomplish tomorrow. A lot of the Dodges going out west. What's the idea and what's the thought process going tomorrow. Are you going to try to get in some drafting, try to get in some long runs?

Basically for us for the 44 team and we'll just go team to team. We'll take John's team, John's team pretty much stays n tact. They've lost one guy, but their team pretty much stays in tact so for them they'll just run a normal test. These guys will go out thee and they'll do some qualifying runs and they'll do some race runs. We'll just try to put some laps on an engine for the 44 team.

It's a brand new team with Mark Tudor and Buckshot Jones and Georgia Pacific and putting that team together, it's important for those guys just to get used to working with each other as it is to learn the Dodge and learn the car and the characteristics of the car.

For the Sprint car for us, you know then we work together with Chris Hussey and stuff on the Busch series but very limited on the Winston Cup car. At the same time, part of our process is learning to work together. The 43, 44 and 45 and sharing information and starting that process as the year starts off early.

So there's a lot of stuff other than just what goes on with the car. As far as the car goes, you know drafting and stuff like that is pretty much a useless exercise for us. I feel like at this point in time you know we may do some stuff just to see where we're at but you know you're not gong to be drafting with just Dodges so it becomes useless to some degree. At the same time, we've got to put laps on these motors. All the engines and all the stuff we have is brand new stuff. You know you've got brand new rods, brands new pistons, cranks, blocks, head you need to put time on them and tear them down and look at them and see how they go because you had rather go into a Rockingham with an engine that had 50 or 100 laps and then was tore down and start it over again then you would with brand new stuff. So for us it's just basically get to know the car, get to know what's going on, get to know the tam members and work one more and one unit, as a Petty Enterprise unit, more so than just individual teams.

How concerned are you guys about what's going on at Dodge or Chrysler Daimler at the financial point and second if I'm not mistaken now you ran on hard tires at one time at a supposedly compound that we had last year, and its going back to a harder compound. What are your thoughts about going back to a harder compound?

It depends on ok #1 as far as the Dodge issue or the Daimler Chrysler issues, basically we see it as a non-issue for us. And all indications from everyone that we've talked to from the racing division on through Corporate Chrysler and through the guys from Daimler Chrysler and some of the Germans some of that organization then it's a non issue. They are committed to motor sports, they're committed to Formula One, they're committed to NASCAR, they're committed to motor sports. And that's part of their program that they're committed - that they see as a way of bringing them back from where they're at. You know what I mean. You know they've had a couple of quarters that are bad, but they've had five or six quarters that were really good if you look at it from that aspect too so its not like they were going in the tank you know, it's just a glitch right now. So I think for them they're committed to the long term, they're not just looking at short term; they're committed to long term.

As far as hard tires and they sort of thing goes, it depends on how hard you go. Obviously you don't want to run Talladega tires in Martinsville, but to some degree, the harder tires changes, it changes the way the car drives obviously, but they change the way you approach it. We went to - to give you a good example - we went to Michigan one year with the Iroc cars and when we first got there, the tires that they had you could rally drive way, way off into the corner in the turn 3 especially, but the tires began to tear up so they went and got Talladega tires that they brought up there for them to run on the Iroc cars and it slowed the lap times down to about 3 seconds. And the cars became a lot harder to drive. They had to come in and redo some stuff but you know it was still a great Iroc race when you go back to look at it whether it was 3 seconds slower or 3 seconds fast it was still a great race and I think that's the important thing right now for Winston Cup racing is not the speed. Who cares if you run 180 if everybody's you know 40 feet apart. Everybody had rather see you run 120 and run three-wide you know so it becomes more of making the show a better show and making the race a better race and it just plays into that, then it will be good for the sport.

Last question for Kyle -

Not only being one of North Carolina's most prominent families but with all the teams you've got and all the employees you've got now you're becoming one of North Carolina's biggest industrial families and I wonder how many people are you employing now a days and what do you think your economic impact is on North Carolina?

A good question. I wouldn't have a clue to be honest with you. Obviously, we've got the three Winston Cup teams in Randolph County and the Busch team, we're still working with the Busch team putting that together and we're working with the truck team and then with the Richard Petty Driving Experience working out of Charlotte, they employ about 300 people over there, so total between the Driving Experience and between the race teams then you're looking at somewhere between 400 and 450 employees. So there are a lot of employees. They don't all work on the racecars and with the racecars, but it's all about the racing when it comes down to it. I think that racing in general for this state is you know a huge industry for this state not to be overlooked when you look at all the race teams that are based in North Carolina and you look at the Cowells and others from other states that have moved to North Carolina and set up shop in North Carolina --it's got to have a huge economic impact, not only the events that happen in North Carolina, Charlotte and Rockingham, those just went off events but the ongoing everyday impact that motor sports have on North Carolina so I think it's a huge industry in the state. We just happen to be a big part of it.

ROBERT PRESSLEY (No. 77) Jasper Engines Ford Taurus

We also have been joined on stage by Mr. Robert Pressley. Robert I'll start you up if you just want to start up about anything new going on this year in the 77 camp.

Pressley: Well Jack Strange in Penski's has joined up and we'll be running Penski engines all year in our Jasper 77 Ford. Looking forward to that. Ryan Pemberton stayed on and all our crew's in tact. Got a lot of racecars ready and looking for this year to get started.

Robert you run competitively in a couple or three races this year. With Ryan and your new equipment and that, what do you feel like is your best chances for winning this year?

Well, Winston Cup's tough. I mean that's what we want to do is be competitive every week, just not a couple of weeks. I think as close as Winston Cup racing is, there are a few race teams that are a step above every body else but we think our team has caught up to the second group of teams now. On a good day I feel like we could luck up and win a race. We say luck, we could do it but a lot of people think it's luck. I feel good about what we've got going on right now - new engine program we got going for next year is going to be a big asset for us. So if we won one, heck I don't care what anyone thinks about it.

Robert, can you talk a little bit about going into the season not having to start with a completely fresh stable of cars when Ryan came in like you said you only kept one car from 99 and had to spend half the year just building cars.

Yeah, I spent the evening with Ryan last night and we were talking about one year ago today the 6th of January of last year we were heading for Daytona. We had one race car - we test one car last year. Last night we had 11 cars ready to race. We got four cars already. It's nice knowing we're ahead of everything.

Text Provided By Marie Mason

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