Inside the Halls of Petty: COT at 'Dega is looming

Kansas is coming up this week and that means that we are going back to the Dodge Charger. This flip-flopping between the Charger and the Avenger will go right on through the Chase for the Championship. I think we are getting pretty good at going back and forth between the two cars. It takes a little different approach, but they are both still racecars.

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.

Tracks like Kansas, 1.5-miles in length, make up a huge part of our schedule. It is an area of our program that we have really tried to shore up. We've taken both of our cars, the No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge and the No. 45 Wells Fargo Dodge, to Kentucky Speedway to work on these downforce setups. The coil-binding stuff that you have heard about all season really comes into play at these tracks. Doug Randolph, crew chief on the No. 43, worked a lot on coil-binding setups at the former Ginn Racing shop. They had a seven-post shaker where teams can simulate this. He has worked closely with Billy Wilburn, crew chief of the No. 45, to really advance our knowledge of this new "science."

Incidentally, if Kentucky gets a Nextel Cup date, where are we going to test? We'll save that for another column.

After Kansas comes one of the most anticipated races of the year. At the Talladega Superspeedway, the Dodge Avenger will make its restrictor plate debut. You can bet that every driver, owner and crew chief has had that date circled on their calendars. It will give us an idea of what we can expect out of the new car during next year's Speedweeks and the 50th annual Daytona 500.

A couple of weeks ago the Nextel Cup Series went down to Talladega for a test of the new cars. Everyone left with a good feeling about the racing that will go on down there. The cars suck up well to the car in front of them, but not so much that you run the guy over. Both Bobby (Labonte) and Kyle (Petty) compared it to driving a Cadillac down Interstate 85 near our shop in Level Cross, N.C.

Talladega, though, is a different place than Daytona. Speedweeks will be the most important ever.

This new car spurred me to go back over some of the other significant restrictor plate changes. NASCAR is always playing with spoiler angle and other aerodynamic variables, but this is probably the most significant change to impact the racing at Daytona and Talladega since the restrictor plate itself. Some changes have been made to slow the cars down and some have been made to cut the cost of restrictor plate racing.

The restrictor plate debuted at the Daytona 500 in 1988. The year before, Bill Elliot qualified at over 212 mph for the March race at Talladega, which is still the record. For the 2000 Daytona 500, NASCAR began issuing teams their front and rear shocks. Rear shocks are still distributed, along with rear springs, but front shocks are now built by the teams again.

Restrictor plates keep the cars bunched up into tight packs. This usually leads to what has been called "The Big One," a wreck that takes out what seems like half the field. In 2002, NASCAR mandated a smaller fuel cell in hopes that by having to come down pit road more often, the differences in pit crews would space the cars out. Most folks will tell you that this had a marginal effect because the draft itself bunches the cars back up.

Yep, the Dodge Avenger will change the way we race at Daytona and Talladega. NASCAR is already toying with the idea of using a restrictor plate with larger openings. This should make passing at the front of the field easier. In the past it has been hard to get by the leader, but hopefully this will get better.

See you in Victory Lane,
Robbie Loomis