Inside the Halls of Petty: Good start to the COT era

The first Car of Tomorrow race is in the books. It was another exciting Bristol race. The new car was a big test for everyone. I'm sure some of the drivers are pleasantly surprised and some are left with work to do.

Petty Enterprises had a solid weekend. Kyle was pretty fast all weekend and Bobby and the crew worked hard all day on Sunday. We gained ground in the championship race and that's always positive when leaving a place like Bristol.

Inside Petty

Each week on NASCAR.COM, Robbie Loomis will take fans "Inside the Halls of Petty Enterprises." A championship-winning crew chief, Loomis has 26 victories atop the pit box and as Vice President of Operations oversees both Petty cars.

• The COT wait is over
• Welcome to our shop

We were probably no different than most other teams. We had to really work hard to get the cars to drive comfortably for Kyle and Bobby. The crew chiefs, Billy Wilburn and Paul Andrews, worked their magic throughout the practice sessions, during the race, and we brought the No. 45 Marathon American Spirit Motor Oil Dodge and No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge home in the 20th and 22nd positions, respectively. I'm proud of the effort that everyone at Petty Enterprises put in. We now have to focus on improving those results at Martinsville.

Speaking of Martinsville, that track and Petty Enterprises both own prominent places in the history of this sport. Petty Enterprises began in 1949 as Lee Petty Engineering, the very same year that Martinsville Speedway would host its first race in what would become the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. Essentially, there has never been a season of Cup racing without Petty Enterprises fielding a car or without a Martinsville Speedway date on the schedule.

Most teams like to do well at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. because they have shops located within close proximity. From our shop, located in Randleman, N.C., Martinsville Speedway is really one of the closest tracks that we race. This gives us extra incentive to go and win a Grandfather Clock, which is given to the winner of every feature race at Martinsville, and one of the coolest trophies in professional sports.

Petty Enterprises has a total of 19 wins at the track, the most of any track on which a Petty Enterprises car has competed. You can see we take our racing at Martinsville pretty seriously.

Martinsville, like Petty Enterprises, is full of tradition. It's one of the favorite stops on the circuit for us. It's intense, side-by-side racing. The racing is a lot like Bristol, but Martinsville is a flat, paperclip-shaped oval. We depend a lot on brakes and keeping our fenders straight.

There is still some unknowns about how our Avengers will react at a place like this, but we've got the best drivers and best crew to make good things happen this weekend. We have history on our side, too.

With all of the history at Martinsville Speedway you may be wondering: Who is the all-time winningest driver at the track?

That would be The King, Richard Petty. He won there 15 times, which means you can hear Grandfather Clocks going off every hour, on the hour, in Randleman.

See you in Victory Lane,
Robbie Loomis