W
Ward Burton
Guest
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- In the darkened Winston Cup garage area late Thursday night, crewmen were loading the No. 44 Dodge driven by Christian Fittipaldi on to the team's hauler.
Suddenly, the lights in the trailer went off.
It was that kind of night for Petty Enterprises. The lights went out on Fittipaldi and the No. 43 Dodge driven by Shane Hmiel, as neither were able to get their cars into the Pepsi 400 field at Daytona International Speedway.
And the third Petty car, the No. 45 driven by Kyle Petty, barely made it in the show, as Petty had to take the sixth of seven provisionals.
"It's pretty disappointing," team owner Richard Petty said. "You come to a race, you're supposed to be racing. But when you ain't got your stuff together, then this is what happens."
What went wrong? Simple, Kyle Petty said. The engines weren't up to snuff.
"It's the way things go, especially at a restrictor-plate race," Petty said. "Somewhere, we've gotten behind on our engines, and we just ain't caught up. It's been showing everywhere we've been, but it really showed up here.
"Mike's engines have been really, really good, but these are the same cars that we ran here before. We lost ground this time. You can't say it's got a lot to do with the cars. I've got to put all this on our engine department."
Petty Enterprises engines are built by Mike Ege Racing Engines, a company started before the 2002 season to exclusive construct engines for the Pettys. Ege came from Robert Yates Racing, long known as one of the best engine-building companies in NASCAR.
But Ege hasn't gained any horsepower on restrictor-plate engines. That doesn't sound too bad, but when you consider everyone else is gaining a few horsepower, the Pettys slide backwards.
"The engines are the same as they were," Kyle Petty said. "Our open-plate stuff has gotten worse and worse as the year's gone on. Our restrictor-plate stuff is not good."
Richard Petty agreed that the engines were to blame for the slow speeds. Petty was the fastest of the three cars, going 181.811 mph, but that was 0.788 seconds of Steve Park's pole-winning run.
Hmiel and Fittipaldi were 45th and 46th, respectively, of 47 cars. Both were more than a second slower than Park and more than three-tenths of a second slower than the 36th-place qualifier, Jeff Burton.
The No. 43 is out of provisionals, while the No. 44 was making its first start and was at the bottom of the list to be eligible for a provisional.
Since NASCAR started running at Daytona, the No. 43 car has failed to be in a race only six times.
But Richard Petty, who made the No. 43 famous, said that wasn't a big issue.
"No big deal," Petty said. "I wasn't driving. But it wasn't the driver's fault. The car's not there. It's not been there all day today. You can't blame the driver if the car don't run, especially down here. Anybody who see over the steering wheel can qualify a car here if the car's fast enough."
Hmiel also said his car lost second and third gear as he started off pit road, which slowed his progress to top speed.
Still, the engines were the bigger issue. Richard Petty said it had to be the engines, for bodies on all the cars are pretty close to the same.
"Especially with the common templates, our cars can't be that bad," Petty said. "A bunch of other Dodges are running good, a bunch of other Chevrolets are running good. They've got basically the same templates, and if we were wrong on the templates, we wouldn't get through inspection. From that standpoint, the bodies are not that bad.
"Where do you go? Especially with the restricted deal, you really look at the engines because you don't have to worry about the car handling or the driver not driving it in deep enough and getting sideways -- you don't get none of that."
But when engines are down on horsepower, what you get is a slow race car. And you get a few people named Petty who will have some words for their engine builders.
"We've got to go back and talk to the motor people, that's for dang sure," Richard Petty said.
Suddenly, the lights in the trailer went off.
It was that kind of night for Petty Enterprises. The lights went out on Fittipaldi and the No. 43 Dodge driven by Shane Hmiel, as neither were able to get their cars into the Pepsi 400 field at Daytona International Speedway.
And the third Petty car, the No. 45 driven by Kyle Petty, barely made it in the show, as Petty had to take the sixth of seven provisionals.
"It's pretty disappointing," team owner Richard Petty said. "You come to a race, you're supposed to be racing. But when you ain't got your stuff together, then this is what happens."
What went wrong? Simple, Kyle Petty said. The engines weren't up to snuff.
"It's the way things go, especially at a restrictor-plate race," Petty said. "Somewhere, we've gotten behind on our engines, and we just ain't caught up. It's been showing everywhere we've been, but it really showed up here.
"Mike's engines have been really, really good, but these are the same cars that we ran here before. We lost ground this time. You can't say it's got a lot to do with the cars. I've got to put all this on our engine department."
Petty Enterprises engines are built by Mike Ege Racing Engines, a company started before the 2002 season to exclusive construct engines for the Pettys. Ege came from Robert Yates Racing, long known as one of the best engine-building companies in NASCAR.
But Ege hasn't gained any horsepower on restrictor-plate engines. That doesn't sound too bad, but when you consider everyone else is gaining a few horsepower, the Pettys slide backwards.
"The engines are the same as they were," Kyle Petty said. "Our open-plate stuff has gotten worse and worse as the year's gone on. Our restrictor-plate stuff is not good."
Richard Petty agreed that the engines were to blame for the slow speeds. Petty was the fastest of the three cars, going 181.811 mph, but that was 0.788 seconds of Steve Park's pole-winning run.
Hmiel and Fittipaldi were 45th and 46th, respectively, of 47 cars. Both were more than a second slower than Park and more than three-tenths of a second slower than the 36th-place qualifier, Jeff Burton.
The No. 43 is out of provisionals, while the No. 44 was making its first start and was at the bottom of the list to be eligible for a provisional.
Since NASCAR started running at Daytona, the No. 43 car has failed to be in a race only six times.
But Richard Petty, who made the No. 43 famous, said that wasn't a big issue.
"No big deal," Petty said. "I wasn't driving. But it wasn't the driver's fault. The car's not there. It's not been there all day today. You can't blame the driver if the car don't run, especially down here. Anybody who see over the steering wheel can qualify a car here if the car's fast enough."
Hmiel also said his car lost second and third gear as he started off pit road, which slowed his progress to top speed.
Still, the engines were the bigger issue. Richard Petty said it had to be the engines, for bodies on all the cars are pretty close to the same.
"Especially with the common templates, our cars can't be that bad," Petty said. "A bunch of other Dodges are running good, a bunch of other Chevrolets are running good. They've got basically the same templates, and if we were wrong on the templates, we wouldn't get through inspection. From that standpoint, the bodies are not that bad.
"Where do you go? Especially with the restricted deal, you really look at the engines because you don't have to worry about the car handling or the driver not driving it in deep enough and getting sideways -- you don't get none of that."
But when engines are down on horsepower, what you get is a slow race car. And you get a few people named Petty who will have some words for their engine builders.
"We've got to go back and talk to the motor people, that's for dang sure," Richard Petty said.
