Saturday's race at Daytona International Speedway marked the 20th anniversary of Richard Petty's 200th, and final, victory on the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series circuit. President Ronald Reagan was in the stands when Petty beat Cale Yarborough by a couple feet racing back to the caution flag with two laps to go.
Petty has stopped driving but his mind still runs at full throttle.
He talked about that historic race as well as the current direction of the sport.
Question: What do you remember of your 200th victory 20 years ago?
Petty: Basically just as we came across the start/finish line with three laps to go, we had just come out of the dogleg and off to the left, up in the air, we saw this car going up and down. I think both of us both said, 'OK, this is it.' So any strategy either of us had went out the window. He did all he could do. He got by me going up the backstretch. I got down beside of him in the middle of three and four. I had experience with that same thing with Pearson back in '76. I'd done the same thing with Pearson. He passed me in the backstretch and I got down beside him in three and four and thought I had cleared him, but we crashed. I said, 'OK, I can't crash this time because I've already been here and been through that.' I just stayed beside Cale and ... the cars were even, even. When we turned through the dogleg I had a shorter route to go and beat him by a couple of feet. It was just destiny to be that way.
Question: That race ended under caution, but you were allowed to race back to the line. Under today's rules, you wouldn't have been allowed to race back to the line. The field would have been frozen and Yarborough would have won the race and you would have ended your career with 199 wins. What are your thoughts about racing back to the yellow?
Petty: Let's go back a little further. The first mistake NASCAR made on this particular deal is when they stopped the field at Richmond (in 1998). That was a mistake and they're going to pay for it from now on. If they had just left it like it was, we wouldn't be running into all this controversy right now. We'd still be running our races like what they're supposed to be run and everything would be OK. They made that one call, and once they made that one call, they tried to come back and sort of cover themselves and every time they do something they try to cover themselves again. That's why the media, fans and everybody is so excited about what's going on because nobody knows until after it's all done. Then NASCAR says, 'OK, this is the way it was.' You don't know where you're at, when they just froze the thing, whether you just passed the guy or he just passed you. It's very, very confusing to the competitors and the fans, and the press don't know what to write because they're confused, too. On top of that, nobody is as confused as NASCAR. I don't see no way to back up. The fans have got used to that now.
Question: Have the new rules hurt or helped the sport?
Petty: I think it's hurt because it's created controversy that we shouldn't run into that questions NASCAR and our ability to put on a professional show. When you look at it that way it's really hurt our sport from that standpoint.
Question: Have the changes been good for the sport?
Petty: Probably two-thirds of it is positive. Nextel is a good fit for NASCAR. I think where Nextel is a good fit it gives us a chance to go to new venues that we weren't able to go to with RJR as far as the younger people and stuff. That's going to be a big, big plus. The schedule needs to expand from the standpoint where I've got Georgia-Pacific and General Mills and if we stay say in North Carolina and run 10 races, we're spending a bunch of money for that one guy to come in there all the time. If we run 10 races and they've got 10 different people they can get in front of, look at the advantage it is for them. From a sponsor's standpoint and from our growth, not so much from TV because we can run every race from the same track as far as TV is concerned, but the deal is being able to go to California, being able to go to New Hampshire, being able to go to Florida and Texas. We're covering the country with actual people coming into our venue and watching our race physically and that gets a little more exciting than TV does, so that's a plus.
Question: What about the Chase for the Championship.
Petty: On the championship deal, I'm still out to school on that deal. The deal is we run a season and we need a season championship. We don't need a 10-race champion. We could say, 'OK, we're going to run the first 10 races and whoever wins them is the champion and then we're going to run the other 26. What difference does it make? I think it takes away from that part of it, but from the excitement part, the TV part, the press part, it's probably a plus. I don't think it really tells you who the real champion is for the complete year. There might need to be two championships, one a year championship and one a 10-race champion.
NEXTEL CUP SERIES
DRIVER POINTS
1. JIMMIE JOHNSON2,545
2. DALE EARNHARDT JR.2,518
3. JEFF GORDON2,313
4. TONY STEWART2,203
5. MATT KENSETH2,189
6. BOBBY LABONTE2,164
7. KURT BUSCH2,153
8. ELLIOTT SADLER2,152
9. RYAN NEWMAN2,112
10. KEVIN HARVICK2,095
11. KASEY KAHNE1,984
12. JEREMY MAYFIELD1,948
13. JAMIE MCMURRAY1,944
14. MARK MARTIN1,939
15. DALE JARRETT1,918
DRIVERWINNINGS
1. Dale Earnhardt Jr$4,217,800
2. Matt Kenseth 3,852,870
3. Tony Stewart 3,487,300
4. Jeff Gordon 3,388,020
5. Jimmie Johnson 2,897,020
6. Elliott Sadler 2,623,830
7. Ryan Newman 2,589,020
8. Kevin Harvick 2,571,460
9. Kasey Kahne 2,441,850
10. Bobby Labonte 2,413,720
11. Rusty Wallace 2,294,040
12. Dale Jarrett 2,243,840
13. Michael Waltrip 2,205,090
14. Scott Wimmer 2,143,110
15. Sterling Marlin 2,049,110
DATE RACE WINNER/TRACK
FEB. 15Daytona 500 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
FEB. 22Subway 400 Matt Kenseth
MARCH 7UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 Matt Kenseth
MARCH 14Golden Corral 500 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
MARCH 21Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 Jimmie Johnson
MARCH 28Food City 500Kurt Busch
APRIL 4Samsung/RadioShack 500 Elliot Sadler
APRIL 18Advance Auto Parts 500 Rusty Wallace
APRIL 25Aaron's 499Jeff Gordon
MAY 2Auto Club 500Jeff Gordon
MAY 15Chevrolet American Revolution 400 Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
MAY 22NASCAR Nextel All-Star ChallengeMatt Kenseth
MAY 30Coca-Cola 600Jimmie Johnson
JUNE 6MBNA America 400Mark Martin
JUNE 13Pocono 500Jimmie Johnson
JUNE 20DHL 400Ryan Newman
JUNE 27Dodge/Save Mart 350Jeff Gordon
JULY 3Pepsi 400Jeff Gordon
JULY 11Tropicana 400Chicago, (NBC)
DATE RACE WINNER/TRACK
JULY 25New England 300 Loudon, N.H., (TNT)
AUG. 1Pennsylvania 500Long Pond, Pa., (TNT)
AUG. 8Brickyard 400Indianapolis, (NBC)
AUG. 15Sirius at the GlenWatkins Glen, N.Y., (TNT)
AUG. 22GFS Marketplace 400Brooklyn, Mich., (TNT)
AUG. 28Sharpie 500Bristol, Tenn., (TNT)
SEPT. 5Pop Secret 500Fontana, Calif., (NBC)
SEPT. 11Chevy Monte Carlo 400Richmond, Va., (TNT)
SEPT. 19Sylvania 300Loudon, N.H., (TNT)
SEPT. 26MBNA America 400Dover, Del., (TNT)
OCT. 3EASports 500Talladega, Ala., (NBC)
OCT. 10Banquet 400Kansas City, Kan., (NBC)
OCT. 16UAW-GM Quality 500Concord, N.C., (NBC)
OCT. 24Subway 500Martinsville, Va., (NBC)
OCT. 31Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 Atlanta, (NBC)
NOV. 7Checker Auto Parts 500Phoenix, (NBC)
NOV. 14Mountain Dew Southern 500 Darlington, S.C., (NBC)
NOV. 21Ford 400Homestead, Fla., (NBC)
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