The long haul begins

By Richard Petty, Special to Turner Sports Interactive
July 10, 2001
12:18 PM EDT (1618 GMT)

Daytona is down, 19 more races to go this season.

Everybody is talking a lot about the schedule -- especially the NASCAR Winston Cup schedule the rest of this season. We're finishing the year with 20 straight races. That's a lot.

To my knowledge, the most we've had in a row in what they call the "Modern Era" (since the schedule was pared to a weekly-type schedule beginning in 1972) was around 15. And it seems like there were a couple of rainouts at that point to take up some off-weekends.

It's hard on everybody but it's hardest on the crew guys. Keep in mind, a regular weekend at a track away from Level Cross (where Petty Enterprises is located) is a pretty full weekend.

For example, we go to Chicagoland Speedway this week, just outside of Chicago in Joliet, Ill. It's a brand-new speedway, so NASCAR is giving us an extra day there to practice.

That's a pretty good idea. A lot of teams haven't tested there, so that extra day is going to come in handy for them. Some teams have tested there -- and that extra day is still going to come in handy.

Anyway, our regular road-crew guys will fly to Chicago sometime Wednesday, so they can be at the track first thing Thursday morning.

Thursday will consist of getting the car ready to practice, and then two practice sessions. Those are scheduled to be over sometime around 6 o'clock Thursday afternoon. An hour to make final changes and then back to the hotel.

Dinner and hotel time is usually spent talking about the cars. What did we do? What should we have done? What did we change? What should we have changed? What will work for qualifying but probably not for the race? What will work for the race but not for qualifying? And that's item-by-item and only the beginning of the questions.

Friday morning, the crew is back in around 7 o'clock in the morning, making the changes we talked about the night before. We're working to get the car ready for qualifying. There will be practice Friday morning, then more changes to get the car ready for inspection, and then qualifying.

Friday night, talk it all over again. What did we do? How did we do it? What could we have done differently? What did we learn that we can use for the race?

Saturday morning, back in around 7 o'clock again and back to work. More changes. More fine-tuning. Everything is dialed in to getting the car ready to race. You work to get ready to practice, and then practice to see what other work you need to do. Finally, the day ends around 5 or 6 o'clock.

Back to the hotel. More talk. More discussion. More changes.

Sunday morning, 6 o'clock, those guys are back in the garage, getting the car ready to race. Whatever we've decided over three days' time is being implemented. We go with what we've decided. Then the race.

After the race, the guys will spend an hour getting the transporter packed back up so it can get home. The transporters leave Chicago Sunday night, get back to Level Cross sometime Monday, get packed Monday so they can leave again by Thursday morning.

And we do this week after week after week. Run one, get home, run another. It's tough -- a lot tougher life than some people might think.

In fact, I was starting to tell some of the guys how it used to be in the '60s, when we ran up to 60 races a year. You know what? None of them wanted to hear it.