Kyle Petty
Kyle Petty
Kyle Eugene Pettyis an American stock car racing driver. Now retired, he formerly competed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and is currently a television analyst for NBC's pre- and post-race shows. He formerly was a color commentator for TNT's NASCAR coverage from 2006 through 2014. He is the son of racer Richard Petty, grandson of racer Lee Petty, and father of Adam Petty. He and his ex—wife Pattie have two other children: Austin and Montgomery Lee. He last drove...
ProfessionRace Car Driver
Date of Birth2 June 1960
CityLevel Cross, NC
Jack Roush is the only guy that could keep Matt Kenseth from winning races.
The only part I miss about driving is driving. That's it. I don't miss all the other stuff that goes along with it, all the other PR stuff. Anybody, when they quit driving, they miss the driving part.
That's what faith is - that belief that there's somebody there that's going to help you and push you and be that person that is there for you when you're in your deepest, darkest moment.
I just loved the driving part. If I didn't race anybody, it didn't make any difference as long as I could drive. It's just the physical part of getting in the car and being able to go run fast and being able to drive.
It doesn't matter what you do, if you love what you do, then you don't sweat the little things. You just don't pay attention to them. Then when the big things come along, they're never as big as what they seem to somebody who doesn't have a passion for it and doesn't really love it.
We can make tires safer. We can make walls safer.
What happens is the guys on the team hear what is going on, and it affects what they are doing. It can be a pretty big demoralizer. Sure, drivers come and go, but telling your crew that you'll be gone in 16-17 months can affect a lot of things between now and the time of your New Year's Eve party going into 2007.
With these two working together, it'll take Petty Enterprises to another level, ... My job -- and it's been made clear to me by Robbie -- is to sit my butt in a race car and drive it and keep my mouth shut.
We're putting the band back together. We weren't going in the right direction, but I think that's about to change.
The problem isn't necessarily the driver signing a contract in August of 2005 to race for another team in 2007,
The demand was really for the night race. You could always get tickets to the day race up here in the spring. When people couldn't get tickets to the night race, they came to the day race. TV did a lot for the night race. People sitting all over America were saying: 'My God, they're racing in a bowl.' They were used to Daytona and Charlotte. I think it's the curiosity as much as anything.
When we looked at it, we'd made very little progress over the last four or five years. We weren't going in the right direction, so we had to look outside our own circle.