Road courses: Just as important

By Richard Petty, Special to Turner Sports Interactive
August 7, 2001
3:58 PM EDT (1958 GMT)

Let's get one thing straight from the start -- every race is important.

Whether you are running for a few million dollars at Indianapolis or it's the smallest purse on the circuit ... whether you are running the Daytona 500 or the most obscure race in stock cars ... they are all important. Every one of them is hard to win. Every one of them is a big deal to do well in. Every one of them pays 180 points if you win it.

That said, we're on a road course this week -- Watkins Glen.

We run two road courses a year in NASCAR Winston Cup -- this race in upstate New York and the June race at Sonoma, Calif. Some people love running them, some hate it. Some people love watching it, some hate it.

But I'll tell you this much. The drivers and crews work as hard, if not harder, to win at Sonoma and Watkins Glen as they do anywhere else.

Road courses are just another twist that is thrown in there for these race teams. When you win the NASCAR Winston Cup championship, you want everyone to know you are the best of the best. You're not just the best at superspeedways or just the best at short tracks. You are the best at every kind of racing there is. As far as I know, we are the only series that competes on big superspeedways, intermediate speedways, short tracks and road courses.

These things have been on our schedule as long as I can remember and, as far as I know, forever. The way I understand it, there were road courses in automobile racing before there were oval races. When you think about, it, if it hadn't been for Indianapolis Motor Speedway, there may have never been that big of a cry for oval tracks. We might still be running nothing but road courses.

I had my share of success on them. Even though we didn't run them quite as regularly from season to season as these boys do now, somebody told me I'm still tied for the lead in road course wins. Bobby Allison and I are tied with Rusty Wallace and Jeff Gordon. (Somehow I have the feeling that Bobby and I are going to be dropping to second place in that category either this week or sometime next year.)

We'll go up to Watkins Glen and, all of the sudden, we'll start seeing some new faces around the garage. A lot of teams look at bringing in a "specialist" for the road courses. Robby Gordon about won the race at Sonoma, Calif., this year, even though he is a lot closer to a regular with these boys than a "ringer." But guys like Ron Fellows and Boris Said and others, who are really great road course drivers, will be there this week.

Nothing new. You go down the list of road course winners in NASCAR Winston Cup racing and you see names like Mark Donohue and Parnelli Jones, along with Cotton Owens and Lee Petty. The good road course racers can usually shine in these races -- but they have to be good racers too.

Then again, you keep looking down the list of drivers who have won road courses and the cream still rises to the top. Look at the championships -- me, Bobby, (David) Pearson, Darrell (Waltrip), Cale (Yarborough), Terry (Labonte). Those are all guys who knew they had to be good at road course racing to win championships.

Dale Earnhardt figured that out, too. And even though he only won the one road course race in his career, he was always a factor in the road course races -- and he always racked up a ton of points in them.

You may love Watkins Glen and you may hate it, just like you might love some oval track somewhere and hate another one. But you go in there with the attitude that you have to do your best. Your goal is to leave with as many Winston Cup points as you possibly can.

Right turn, left turns, uphill or flat track, none of that matters. We're in the points business, and Watkins Glen is where we're working this week.