Kyle Petty, Is He Right About Danica Patrick?

Today the entire NASCAR world has seen a small statement that Kyle Petty made about "rising star," Danica Patrick.

More or less, Kyle said that Danica is a huge marketing machine for NASCAR and that even though she can drive fast, aka, qualifying, she is not a race car driver.  (How many 27th place drivers get interviewed in any sport?)

Zing!

In response to Kyle's statement, Danica had said that she doesn't care about what he said and that plenty of people say bad things about her.

It's he said, she said!

And ever since Danica landed in NASCAR, she's been facing this kind of criticism from many sources.

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It's been my observation that Kyle Petty calls it as he sees it and he's always seemed to be on mark with many things that he comments on.  I've enjoyed his angle on the various subjects he touches on.

And it's nice to see someone with some clout say something that many fans have been thinking.

But was it warranted for him to say this?

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Danica Patrick was the first woman to win an IndyCar race when she won the Japan 300 back in 2008 after the rest of the competition failed to manage their fuel runs in the race.

That was her one and only win in that series.

She came to NASCAR in the ARCA series for a bit, then the Nationwide series.  She did well enough against the other Nationwide drivers, but was always the follow up finisher to any Cup drivers that competed in the same Nationwide races she was in.

When she moved up to the Sprint Cup series, I lost count of how many folks that felt she was nowhere near ready for the competition in the top tier division of NASCAR.

But she brought a huge sponsor in GoDaddy to the series, and as Kyle put it, brought a ton of public attention with her with her "marketing machine" gold.

She won the pole at Daytona, but then many felt that it was great, but let's wait until a non-restrictor plate race to see if that performance trend continued.

Not so much.

She's 27th in points right now.  It's hard to deny what Kyle said about her with her spot in the standings.  AT the moment.

Then there are the hard-core fans of hers that will keep rooting and waiting for her performance levels to get better.

And that would be a good thing for all concerned.  If she became a contender.

Last week at Sonoma, I was watching her drive the track, and if you've seen the races at Sonoma, the way to take the track is the shortest distance between two points.  And that usually involves hitting the inside berm and getting a wee bit of air under a tire or two.

She never once touched the inside berm, and kept all four wheels on the ground at all times.

I'm not sure what that means.  Is she on to something no one else is on to, or was she coming up short?

I don't know.  But it's what I saw.

For the time being, I expect we'll be seeing some TV coverage on the words between a Petty and a Patrick come Sunday when the TV coverage kicks in gear at Kentucky.

Let's see how crazy or sedate this gets by then.

-Bruce
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Is Kansas Kyle Petty's Last Race?

Huh? I had heard a rumorish type statement that the NASCAR Cup event at Kansas could be Kyle Petty's last race.

Patty Petty (The wife. Why is it the wife that sometimes the one that spills the beans?) said in an interview on Friday, the 26th of September that Kyle wants to be in a good race car ... and that "this is probably his last race in that car", while she also added that Petty Enterprises is looking for a younger driver and that Kyle is looking for another ride, but there's not a lot out there since everyone is looking for younger drivers.

On Saturday the 27th, Robby Loomis said back when Kyle started doing TV a few years back, Petty Enterprises started looking to the future for his replacement. Chad McCumbee will be running five more races this year, Terry Labonte will be driving at Talladega and Kyle is scheulded to run at Phoenix. He also added they're looking to have Kyle drive a few races next year and he's not out at Petty Enterprises, all barring how McCumbee does.

So this is not Kyle's last race, but if all goes according to plan with Petty Enterprises and their new owners, then Kyle has two races left. If McCumbee doesn't pan out in the Cup series, it seems that Kyle is plan B for the shop. That must not feel that great.


Source for info: Claire B Lang, Dialed In, XM Radio blog. Thanks for the insight Claire!!

The Hamlin and Petty Thing - Respect

by Bruce Simmons (brusimm)

I keep hearing and reading how the young guns don't respect the veterans of the series, being as how the Denny Hamlin - Kyle Petty thing seems to be sparking this debate.

From what little I did see of the on-track deal at Dover between them, they both went to move up the track. Kyle to get out of the way, Denny to pass him. Good intentions, bad timing. And this being Kyle's 2nd incident of the day, it seemed his tolerances were stretched thin already. If Denny did call him over to talk about it, Kyle didn't do very well representing the veterans with his conversational skills.

As far as respect goes, when someone stops using words and violates your physical space, if you don't stand up to that kind of treatment, you are only inviting more of it, no matter who it is and no one wants that.

Hamlin vs Petty - The New Feud

If you were wathcing the Dodge Dealers 400 Sunday, you probably saw Kyle Petty get dumped in an altercation with Denny Hamlin.

I've read where it's stated that Hamlin lifted Petty's rear end off the ground (FoxSports), but I thought these cars fit nose to tail and that can't be done anymore?

What I did see, I missed the back end getting lifted off the ground, but it looked like Hamlin started going high, around Petty, and at the same time, Kyle Petty started going high, for what ever reason, and the rest is history! A racing oops!

But then when Petty comes over to Denny's car in the garage and smacks his visor down on him while he's still in the car motivated our flu beleagured driver and started unsnapping and got out of his car, but the teams kept the 2 volatile fluids apart! As far as that little thing goes, Denny is quoted saying:

"Don't smack me on the helmet, you smack me on the helmet I'm going to punch you in the face — bottom line," Hamlin said. "I'd like for him to call me some time this week before next week...you don't come to my car, you don't come to my pit, you meet me somewhere else and we'll settle it, but I have the utmost respect for Kyle but don't lay your hands on my head.

"I didn't say one word to him (Petty) in the garage. All I just said was, 'Come here and let me talk to you about it.' He chose to slap my helmet. You know, in hindsight, I should have grabbed his throat."

Zoinks, who'd a thunk Denny's got some moxie!?

See the whole article at FoxSports or ThatsRacin

Kyle Petty MileStone

Did you know that Kyle Petty will be making his 800th career NASCAR Cup Series start this weekend? Wow!

http://www.racingone.com/article.aspx?artnum=36981

Petty's Foul Mouth

Remember the lameness of TNT when they said they did not know who said the f-bomb during the lap one incident in Sonoma when we heard K Petty drop it after getting hit?

Well, Kyle came out and said that it was indeed, himself, who uttered the words of vain!!

"I'm sorry it got as far as everyone's living room. (Yea Kyle, don't worry, it was the tape replay guy who didn't sensor it!) But when an incident happens that early in the race and it's unexpected, what I said pretty much described it."

This was in the middle of this article: USAToday

TNT in-car Snafu

Well, it was interesting, listening to Kyle Petty. I liked the recap of info as we heard what he was saying to the booth and what not, but I thought NASCAR, et al had learned lessons and had mechanisms in place to edit language.

In turn eleven, early on in the race, Kenseth had dove under Petty to take a spot, slapped him (Petty) good, and we get to hear the true, in race reaction as Kyle spats out "What the f***" on air, and we find ourselves hearing Bill Weber apologizing to us for the profanity.

TNT Spokesman Jeff Pomeroy says that the audio can't always be identified: "We can assume that audio came from one of the three cars in the accident. But we can't be sure it was Kyle." Give me a break gang. That was Kyle. Well, to be fair, it sounded A LOT like Kyle.

As Kyle put it, "everybody is a passenger today", even our ringing ears!!

The Halfway Driver, Kyle Petty

Kyle Petty said: "They've always said I'm kind of a halfway driver, and this time I really am — half-driver, half-analyst."

Kyle will be calling the race from inside his car this weekend at the Toyota / Save Mart 350 because, A: he refused not to drive in the race because road courses are fust plain fun, and B: perform a TV first by reporting on the race from in the race.

But he expects to become a raconteur during caution flags: "Cautions for us are like timeouts in other sports. I can talk about what I saw or give fans a better idea of why I ran off the track."

But Petty's hybrid role Sunday raises the possibility of some unprecedented on-air commentary. Drivers, even if they've banged off walls and flipped, are expected to dutifully mention their sponsors on TV if they're still conscious, but TV analysts are supposed to avoid blatant hype.

See the details at USAToday.com.

If you are interested, other tidbits at this link are:
Breaking ground: Woman to call Cup race on DirecTV: Wendy Venturini will be calling the race.
NBC takes risk on these reporters: NBC will be using action sports athletes with no TV experience to call the AST Dew Tour's season kickoff event.
New TV channel will offer equal coverage, Big Ten says: The Big Ten Network, a channel devoted to that conference and debuting in August