Inside the Halls of Petty: It's all about winning races

Hey, it's Kyle Petty. I've got to take a few minutes to talk about this Car of Tomorrow, our sport and what's happening here at Petty Enterprises. I know Robbie has been giving you updates, and Bobby last week, but I wanted to talk about some stuff.

First, let's talk about this Car of Tomorrow since we'll be racing it this weekend at Richmond. Hey, we've heard everything now about this thing, but you know what, it's not a rocket ship or space shuttle. This thing is still a racecar. We raced it Martinsville, Bristol, Phoenix, tested at Richmond and now we are heading back to Richmond for the race. The world didn't fall off its axis. We didn't wreck every car at Bristol. In fact, I think we saw a lot less cautions there.

Inside Petty

The No. 45 Car of Tomorrow

Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of things that we need to work out on this car and we do here at Petty Enterprises. The 43 team got a top 10 at Phoenix and that was good for the organization. We, the 45 team have learned a lot about it and have been fast with it too. We are still learning the engineering side of it and some things like that. We want it to turn better, but these are issues that you face. You are going to have new challenges, but you still go out and race it.

It looks different, and people talk about the wing, but how many racecars out there don't have a wing? Not many. Think about it, Formula One, IRL, sports cars, sprint cars, they all race with wings. We are probably just stepping up by having a wing. We'll know a lot more about how the wing will affect these cars once we race on intermediate tracks, but we noticed a difference at Phoenix. You have some more drag with it, the speeds are a little slower, but slower speeds doesn't mean bad racing. We'll just see how everything plays out, but we haven't seen any major issues with it.

It's funny because at the beginning of the season you had a lot of talk about Toyota. Will their presence change the scene of Cup racing? Nope. Hey, this is a tough sport. It doesn't matter if it's a new team or new manufacturer; it's going to take some time. They really had two new teams and only one existing team with Bill Davis Racing. That makes it tough. I think of Dodge. They came in and every Dodge team had to work together to win. Dodge is a car capable of winning now, and we're proud to be associated with them at Petty Enterprises.

This sport is always producing news and people are talking about how this is going to change or that is going to make things worse or better. I've seen a lot in my career and we're still racing to win races. That's what it still comes down to. The cars look a little different, we have sponsors that we support and they support us, but it's all about winning races on Sunday. You do that and everyone is happy.

We're doing our best to make sure we get back in Victory Lane. I think we've seen that our Evernham engines and the stuff that those guys have been doing is good. We have had strong cars all year. We're learning more and more about the Car of Tomorrow. Our intermediate program has been better too. We made a big leap in 2006 and now we're trying to make the gains to get to the next level. We keep looking at our cars and seeing how we can make them better. We're focusing on our engineering a lot now. They are really looking at the Car of Tomorrow and seeing where we can make improvements.

It's another season. Yes, we had some changes in our sport, but there is always change. You just adapt to them and move along. We feel good about the direction of Petty Enterprises. We have good guys on the teams; we just need to keep making ground.

See you in Victory Lane,
Kyle Petty