Conversation: Kyle Petty

JOLIET, Ill. -- To many race fans, the name "Petty" is synonymous with winning. Lee Petty won 54 races and three championships, and Lee's son Richard won 200 races and seven championships.

So when Kyle Petty started in NASCAR, many expected him to pile up race victories and championships. He's fallen far short of his father's records, but Kyle Petty remains an important member of the NASCAR community.

He runs Petty Enterprises, under the watchful eye of his dad. Under Kyle's guidance, Petty Enterprises has made numerous changes in the last couple of years in an effort to recapture some of its past glory.

The team isn't there yet, but Petty believes Petty Enterprises is on the right track. NASCAR.com dispatched Lee Montgomery to talk to Petty about the team, the health of the sport and many other issues - including the name of his daughter, Montgomery Lee.

Q: First of all, thanks for naming your daughter after me. Montgomery Lee, Lee Montgomery.

Petty: "That's Pattie's father's -- his mother's maiden name was Montgomery. And that was his name. His name was Venable Montgomery Huffman. So we named Montgomery Lee after her father's middle name and my father's middle name. That's where we came with Montgomery Lee."

Q: And I had nothing to do with it, thankfully. Speaking of fathers, it's pretty important to you, I gather. Is that the most important thing that you do or that you are?

Petty: "Oh, yeah. I think it should be. You have a job, whatever that job is, it doesn't make any difference. Ours just happens to be riding around in circles around on a racetrack. But you're not going to do that your whole life. You are going to be a father your whole life, and you're going to be a parent your whole life.

"The value system that you give your kids, the example that you set for your kids is important. Because then that's passed on, not only to your kids, but hopefully you're kids pass it along to the next generation. Each parent has a responsibility to kind of perpetuate what value system they've been given."

Q: Speaking of fatherhood, what's your relationship with your dad these days? Does he pretty much stay out of your way as far as Petty Enterprises goes? How does that work?

	Richard Petty

Petty: "No, it's his company. I don't own it. He owns it. He's still heavily involved and always has been. You've got to understand our company as a whole. My grandfather started it, and then he ran it. Even though my uncle and my father ran it, it was still my grandfather's company. Little by little, my grandfather turned it over to those two guys, and then my father ended up with it.

"Even though I'm there running it, my father owns it. That's just the way it's been. It's been passed on from one generation to the next generation. Even when you're not driving and you're not at the racetrack every day, you're still part of the picture."

Q: You guys have been around, obviously, a long time. Do you think today's new breed of fans understands what Petty Enterprises was and how important you guys were to this sport?

Petty: "I don't know, and I'm not really sure that it matters. In the total scheme of where the sport's at and where the sport can be, I'm not sure it really matters. It's kind of like saying, 'Does the average baseball fan today understand what the Red Sox were like or what the Yankees were like in 1932 or 1940?' It was a different time and a different era, whether they dominated or whether they didn't dominate, doesn't mean anything because the sport changes.

"The important part is, after 50 some years, we are still a part of the sport. There's something to be said for that, no matter what. When you look at the Wood Brothers and you look at Petty Enterprises, and then you look at Childress' team, which has been around for 25 or so years, I think it shows how healthy the sport really is -- that teams aren't all invented in the last 10 or 15 years. There were teams from past generations that really do still hold a little bit of the history of the sport."

Q: You started "rebuilding" Petty Enterprises a few years ago with some of the stuff you've done. Do you have a long-term, five-year, 10-year plan?

Petty: "We've got a long-term plan. But right now we're missing our mark short-term. That's been our biggest issue. Like I said at Daytona, after we missed the race down there, we're on track to where we need to be long-term. Short-term, we're missing it left and right. Things aren't happening for us.

"The 43 misses a race, the 44 misses a race. We're struggling to be competitive week-in and week-out. Once we get to a point, then it's going to change direction. But I need it to change direction a lot quicker than that.

"We're about 21/2 years into the Dodge program, we've made major changes with our engine program over the last couple of years, we've made driver changes, and we've made a lot of crew changes.

"You've got to keep plugging at it and keep throwing stuff at it. The model that worked for us 10 or 15 years ago doesn't work for us now. We've got to change our model and change the way we approach this sport. We're struggling a little bit."

Q: You've kind of done that as far as drivers go, looking outside NASCAR, stock cars. Is that something you'll continue to do, look for drivers down the road?

	Kyle Petty is 35th in the Winston Cup standings. Credit: Autostock

Petty: "I think if you only look for drivers in this little pond, then obviously you're overlooking some great drivers. That's the way to look at it. It's the same with personnel. If you overlook mechanics, and you think, 'Ah, that guy doesn't have stock car experience. He's a sports car guy,' I think you're overlooking people.

"You've got to continue to look and just get the best, no matter what they are. A car's a car, four tires are four tires. That's just the way it is. You've got to keep plugging at it. We'll always continue to look outside, whether it be drag racing or IRL or CART or Formula One, it doesn't make any difference. We're going to look for sports cars and everything. We're going to look for mechanics, and we're going to look for drivers there, too."

Q: So we're going to see John Force in a Petty car?

Petty: "John Force would be perfect for us. As mouthy as I am sometimes, John Force would be the perfect model driver for us."

Q: Has Austin given up driving any stock cars? Is he going to be part of Petty Enterprises?

Petty: "Yeah, he works there. But he's not going to be a driver. He doesn't want to be a driver. He played at it for a while, and he enjoyed it. And he still enjoys running a Legends car and kind of messing around and doing some of that. But that's not what he wants to be, and that's fine.

"He's working at the shop. He likes being part of the management, he likes being a part of working on cars. His role will evolve into more of a management, more of a leader at the shop, and then at the race track - more so than behind the wheel."

Q: You've seen a lot of this sport, not just your team, but this sport as a whole. Do you like now the direction NASCAR is headed?

Petty: "You've got to like where it's headed. Or you've got to like where it's at, let me just say that. You've got to like the TV package, you've got to like the Nextel connection and what Nextel can possibly do for this sport from a promotional standpoint. What Nextel does for the sport doesn't only do it for NASCAR, it's going to do it for Georgia Pacific, Cheerios, General Mills, Coca-Cola and Dodge and companies like that. It can take these companies that are already spending millions in the sport to another sport. I think that's big.

ALSO  •  Kyle Petty's Driver Page  •  Petty Enterprises Team Page  •  Kyle Petty's 2003 Stats  •  Families of NASCAR: The Pettys

"The issue becomes, 'Can we maintain the growth? Can you keeping putting butts in the seat?' That's always a big issue in any sport or in any entertainment business: Can you keep putting butts in the seat? Can the show continue to get better and better? Because if the show gets stagnant, then the TV ratings aren't going to go up and the people aren't going to come. The show has to continue to be good.

"It has been this year with so many different winners like we've had. I think it's a really healthy time to be in NASCAR racing, but all in all, it's a nice to be in motorsports in general in the United States."

Q: There are some people who think this sport is "abandoning its roots" by making some of the recent changes they've done. We've talked a little bit about this. What's your feeling about that?

Petty: "You know, good question. I don't know. That's a hard question. Because we you start looking at the realignment with Darlington and Rockingham, and you look at Wilkesboro a few years ago, you say, 'Yeah, maybe they are.'

"At the same time, the way I look at that comment, if I live in Charlotte, I can go to about 10 or 12 races within 60-150 miles from my house. I haven't abandoned the fan in that market. So I don't think by any stretch of the imagination has NASCAR, this type of racing, abandoned any fans. We've not left any fans.

"If you take all the races out of California, the California fans could stand up and say, 'Whoa you're leaving us out.' But we didn't do that. The realignment is important for the sport for growth. Let's be honest and realistic. Yeah, sometimes the truth is cold, but L.A. is bigger market than Darlington or Rockingham. Add Darlington and Rockingham together, and L.A.'s a bigger market.

"For us, the way we are right now, these companies like Cheerios or like Georgia-Pacific and Coca-Cola and Dodge, Wells Fargo Financial, it's important for them to reach the maximum number of people, whether it's through TV or people visually seeing their car. You're going to get that in L.A. You're not going to get that in Darlington."

Q: You used to be a big reader. Do you still read a lot? What was the last book you read?

	Kyle Petty Credit: Autostock

Petty: "The last book I read was 'Moneyball.' It's about the Oakland A's and how they chose to realign their draft and how they chose to take a sport that had been done a certain way for 100 years and look at it from the other side -- so how they choose draft picks and stuff like that. I just read a book called 'Balzac and the Little Seamstress,' which is a novel. It doesn't really mean anything, but it's a cute little book, and it's a good book. It has a good life lesson in it.

"So I still continue to read because you travel so much. When you travel so much and you spend a lot of time in these motorcoaches, whether by yourself or whatever, all the TV shows eventually become the same. It's hard to believe there's 500-some channels, and there's nothing on TV. But it can happen that way."

Q: I also understand you're a big collector of Elvis memorabilia. What's your prize Elvis possession?

Petty: "You know, I kind of used to all the time. I used to collect a lot of stuff. I don't as much any more. I've got a complete set of plates from the Franklin Mint or a company like that who did a set of Elvis through the years. There must be 15 or 20 plates. That's pretty cool.

"I've just been an Elvis fan. People started sending me stuff because I said that somewhere. I've got more stuff than what I probably need. But it's pretty cool to have some of it."

Q: You talked in Daytona about Mike Ege and the situation there. There are no plans to abandon him?

Petty: "No, not at all. Mike's done a really, really good job for us. I just think as of lately, they've dropped the ball a little bit, they've become complacent in where they're at. That's easy to get.

"They were such a huge impact on us last year. I said it before. I gave all the credit to how we performed in 2002 to Mike Ege Racing Engines. It was a huge boost for Petty Enterprises. This year, whether I'm na?ve or whatever, I expected it to continue upward and not to go flat, not to level out. I didn't expect the same growth that we had last year, but I did expect some level of growth.

"When that growth didn't come, it disappoints me, it hurts my feelings, it peeves me off, to be totally honest with you. I was a little bit vocal, maybe more vocal than I should have been. But sometimes when you're vocal to the people that should be making the change and they're not, the only way to do it is to get it out in the public and say, 'OK, everybody else knows I'm not getting the job done either.' That's kind of the way it is.

"But Mike and those guys came back after Daytona. I'm going to tell you, I think they worked 72 hours straight to turn some engines around to come up here to Chicago. It's not a huge step forward, but it's a step in the right direction. It got a lot of people's attention.

AUDIO CLIPS Listen to the Conversation! 1.47 MB / 12:16 Listen

"I think Mike can do the job, and we're committed to Mike Ege Racing Engines. We signed a long-term deal with them, and we have no intention of backing out of that deal and going anywhere else because we think he can be a huge part of Petty Enterprises and what makes Petty Enterprises win."

Q: It's almost funny. Many years ago, people were questioning your dedication to this sport. And yet you go public, criticizing your engine builder. I guess that sort of proves this is no joke.

Petty: "Yeah, but because my father won so many races and championships and I haven't won as many races or championships, then people always question whether you're serious about it or not. That's never really crossed my mind, to be totally honest with you. I don't care.

"Obviously, from some of the things I said last week, I don't really care what some people think about me, or I wouldn't have said what I said.

"I'm dedicated to this sport. I love this sport more than in the world. I love the people in this sport. Tony Glover's walking by right there. Guys like Tony, guys like Steve Hmiel, Bobby Hutchens guys who have been around this sport forever and ever who have put their heart and soul into this sport. That's what makes this a sport. It's not the cars riding around in circles. It's not the great drivers. It's not any of that. It's the guys who get the job done.

"That's what I like about this sport. To be able to take a team like we are at Petty Enterprises who hasn't been competitive over the last 10-12 years and start winning races will be a huge step for us."