BOBBY HAMILTON -43- STP Pontiac Grand Prix
To commemorate Richard Petty's 25th consecutive season with STP - the longest such association in motorsports - the STP team will race with various color schemes during the year.
This week the paint scheme will be from 1972. Richard's first outing in the STP/Red and Petty Blue car came February 20, 1972 in the Daytona 500.
Petty completed the season with eight wins, nine seconds five thirds, two fourths and one fifth place.
Richard closed the season with 16 consecutive top-10 finishes. He started ninth or better in all but one race and during the stretch qualified fifth or better in 18 of 19 races.
"We just tried a few different shock combinations and things like that in practice. We've basically got the same setup in it that we qualified with and it's driving good. The tires seems like they're going to last a little longer than usual. But it's hard to tell because there's not so much traffic out there. In the race, with so many cars out there the track starts getting greasy, and tires really start going away when they slide more They said the construction was different on them and they should last another 20 laps further. `When I saw what the '30 car ran yesterday I felt like we'd all run pretty good. I thought we'd all end up in the top-10. I guess we just barely missed it. There will be days not far from now where, that's going to happen. We always run good here we just don't have luck here. If we have any kind of luck at all we'll run real good and finish real good. I think we'll be in contention for a win. I thought we had a winning car here the second race, last year, and a Pontiac won anyhow. Ward always runs good here. Kyle always runs good here. Rick Mast always runs good here. I'm not taking anything away from, the new Pontiac, but if Pontiac wins I think it will be expected because every one off our teams run good here., I feel like if one wins and another one finishes third, or two or three of them finish in-the top-10 the first thing everyone will say is that the rules are stacked in our favor. I don't think that's the case because all the teams that run Pontiacs run good here.".
