Something new this week for NASCAR
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Richard Petty
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By Richard Petty, Special to Turner Sports Interactive
September 26, 2001
1:38 PM EDT (1738 GMT)
One of the boys in the shop stopped me the other day and said this weekend is going to be like a wedding for us.
I’ve got to admit, I was totally lost on that one. We’re going to Kansas City this week for the first NASCAR Winston Cup race at a brand-new race track. How is that like a wedding?
"Easy," the guy told me. "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue."
All right, I was all over that one. I just looked at him, hoping he’d explain his joke.
"Something old -- stock car racing. Something new -- the Kansas City track. Something borrowed -- our setups from places like Las Vegas, Chicago and Charlotte. And something blue -- Petty blue!"
I just walked away. The boys in the shop usually have some pretty good jokes but, as you can tell, not all the time.
It would be pretty good to see the Petty blue do something good at the new track. Besides the fact that we’re coming off three good cars at Dover this past week, it would be nice to run well at a brand new speedway. Sprint, the primary sponsor on Kyle’s No. 45, is headquartered right there -- so we’re practically in their back yard.
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The Petty Blue
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Kansas is the second new track we’ve added this year. It’s made for a pretty long season, but it’s hard to dispute the fact that markets like Chicago and Kansas City bring a lot to the table for our sport. These fans are pretty hungry for racing too, and I’m glad we can bring it to them.
You don’t have to live in Level Cross, N.C., or Indianapolis, Ind., to love racing. There are folks all over the country -- all over the world -- who just can’t get enough of it. From what I’ve seen and the people I’ve talked with, they all keep an eye on what we’re doing too.
Some watch us closer than others but just about every race fan anywhere in the world has an idea of what’s going on with NASCAR.
Somebody in Brazil or Europe might be a Formula One fan . . . but they have a pretty good idea about Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. There are people who are Indy car fans but they keep an eye on us too -- especially with guys like John Andretti, who started with that kind of racing, running in NASCAR.
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Buckshot Jones (left) and Kyle Petty.
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Television has brought a lot of that. In the '70s, there were few, if any, races on television. And until 1979, no live flag-to-flag coverage. Well, if you lived in Chicago back then, you had to drive at least 300 miles to see a NASCAR race at Michigan.
If you lived in Dallas, you had to drive forever to see a race at, maybe, Talladega. But once the TV folks started showing the races, you could sit in your own home and watch them. Within a few years, as the racing got more popular, you could sit in your own home and watch all of them -- and some Busch Grand National and Truck Series races to boot!
Those folks wanted to see these races in person too. And that created a bigger demand for more tracks in new areas. We’ve grown because of that. As more watch us on TV, more come to the track. As more come to the track, more watch us on TV. It’s a really good cycle.
So we go to a brand new track this week -- Kansas City -- and it’s all part of that cycle. It’s going to be a lot of fun -- for the teams and for the fans getting their first chance to see NASCAR racing in person.
I’m just hoping they’re going to see a lot of Petty Blue up front.
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