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
Consistently running second or third gets you a championship every year in our series. That hasn't changed. You can talk about the Chase all you want, but . . . you're still going to get people who have a shot at the championship or are in the top 10 who haven't won races. There's nothing wrong with that.
I run 20-25 miles during the week ... but you really watch what you eat, I think that's the main thing.
Our focus has to be the 43 car because that's our brand. That's who we are. In a day and time when everything is marketing, we can't afford to let that brand go away.
We've just got to start building some stuff to get better.
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.
Why do I like racing? I was too lazy to work and too chicken to steal.
This sport is probably more competitive than any other professional sport, ... When you get behind on some things, getting caught up again is tough. We've struggled with things for a while, but we've never given up on making it better and getting back to running up front and winning races.
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.
We're excited about the prospects, but are we 100 percent set with the 45 car? ... No, we're not ... and that leaves us with the 43 Dodge, and the issues we have with Jeff Green, who has done a great job for us.
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.
When you've lost a son, there's no price you can put on safety for the driver.
If Adam was here, I probably wouldn't be driving today.
He has talked to the 0 and he's probably going to go to the 0, ... I applaud that. I told him that when you're our age, the way everybody's looking for 19 year olds, if a car opens up, jump in it. Jeff said he didn't want to leave us high and dry, but I told him to protect himself.
We can make tires safer. We can make walls safer.