NASCAR Interview With Kyle Petty

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Kyle Petty's multi-faceted life doesn't keep him from dreaming big dreams. He tries to make those dreams come true with Petty Enterprises and the Victory Junction Gang camp.

Petty wheels into his home track, Martinsville Speedway, this weekend for Sunday afternoon's Subway 500 behind the wheel of the No. 45 Dodge.

	Inside the Numbers Kyle Petty's Cup career Starts 744 Wins 8 Top-5s 51 Top-10s 170 Poles 8 Avg. Start 22.2 Avg. Finish 20.5

1. What's your dream vehicle that you don't already own?

Petty: My dream vehicle is an old school bobber / chopper with a Victory motorcycle engine on it -- because everybody who does bikes uses Harley engines and I ride Victory motorcycles, with Polaris.

So my dream vehicle is to do a custom Victory. I just haven't got it done, yet.

Q: Then again, with everything you've got going and the contacts you've got with engineers, that's probably going to happen soon, no?

Petty: It'll happen before I retire, let me say that. Some time soon -- I'm not sure about that. But it will happen before I retire.

2. If time on the road weren't an issue, what would be your ideal pet?

Petty: I'm sorry for everyone out there who is, but I'm not an animal person -- although we do have a dog right now.

We have a Teacup Pomeranian that our son and daughter, Austin and Montgomery Lee, just gave to Pattie.

Its name is Maya and it may be the ideal pet, because it fits in the palm of your hand. You can carry it in a bag, you can carry it on a plane, you can put it in a car -- you can do anything with it -- and it's just the perfect dog.

Q: And that's M-a-y-a?

Petty: I guess. Spell it like you want to, because I don't have a clue (laughing).

3. What's your biggest pet peeve while driving on the road?

Petty: I have two pet peeves. One is people who get right to their driveway and then they turn their (turn) signal on.

If you plan on turning, then turn your signal on a couple of hundred yards before you get to where you're going.

Don't just wait and let your signal flash twice -- just so you get to hear it flash twice. That's why people get rear-ended

And the other thing is, when you get on an interstate or off an interstate -- the ramps are for building up speed and slowing down: It's not for stopping on the Interstate and turning off, OK, or for driving down the ramp and then looking over your shoulder and trying to accelerate.

People do not know how to use ramps to get on or off interstates.

Q: I agree and I wish I could say there was a solution we could find.

Petty: There's not a solution (laughing) -- except for putting up a lot of signs that say 'faster, faster, faster' as you get on. But I don't know.

4. A lot of years in racing and you travel a lot, so what's your worst hotel experience?

Petty: Hah! My worst hotel experience came when I checked into a hotel, and I will not name it, in Atlanta -- and the guy at the front desk -- I swear, this is the worst.

It took seven tries to get me a hotel room. He would give me a key, I would drag my bag to the elevator, I would go up and the key wouldn't work.

Or, he'd give me another key, I'd drag my bag to the elevator, and four of the seven rooms had people in them. And that was my worst experience -- to walk into a hotel room at 11:30 at night with people in them!

And I'm like, 'Dude, just find me an empty room.' I just wanted him to find me an empty room, so I swear, that was the worst because by the time this was all happening, it was about 2 o'clock in the morning.

Q: Now, we're sitting here thinking what's up with that -- but what did the people who were in the rooms think?

Petty: Oh, I don't know what they thought. I was surprised I didn't get shot. That's what I told him.

After the second one, I thought, 'I'm gonna get shot doing this,' and that's what I told him. Still, two more times that happened.

Finally, I just told him, 'Just get somebody who can work the computer, and give me an empty room.' So finally he got me a room. But that's the worst.

5. What's your favorite food?

Petty: My favorite food would probably be seafood -- any type of seafood, from oysters to clams to fish -- it doesn't make any difference.

Q: Time on the road can be a curse, but maybe not for that -- so what's your best place on the road for seafood?

Petty: My best place on the road for seafood? Well, I have a house in Charleston, so I go to Charleston because it's fresh off the boat. There's not a better place in the world for seafood than Charleston, S.C. -- I will say that.

Of any other place you go, Las Vegas is probably one of the best places, because they fly food in; and also New York, because you never have a bad meal in New York City.

6. If you had to choose, would it be being honest, or being nice?

Petty: It would be honest -- but honesty and nice kind of go hand-in-hand. 

I think you can be honest without being brutally honest. I think there's a difference. I think honesty is a trait in anybody that is lacking.

I think nice hides a lot of sins, you know what I mean, but it's tough to be honest and hide sins, so I think honesty is the thing.

7. What's your fondest childhood memory?

Petty: My favorite childhood memory is traveling to racetracks with my family, and it really is.

My sister Sharon and my sister Lisa -- my third sister Rebecca was not born at the time, I don't think -- but we used to pile in a station wagon and beat it down the road to Daytona.

Or we'd pile into an Imperial LeBaron -- the old Chryslers, which were huge cars -- and I'd sit on the left side and my sister Sharon would sit on the right side and Lisa was small enough that she could lay in the package tray, up in the window in the back because that's how big those cars were, then.

We'd drive up and down the highway with my parents and we'd go to Malta, N.Y., or Islip (N.Y.). We'd go over to Nashville and you just went places.

And any time we went places my mother was incredibly concerned that when we went places, we didn't just see the racetrack. So we went to the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, we went to The Hermitage outside of Nashville, which was Andrew Jackson's home.

I mean, she was constantly looking for historic places, and I think that's the one thing that we did do: We traveled, but as we traveled we went to St. Augustine, we went to Silver Springs and we went everywhere and saw everything.

So it was pretty incredible to be nine or 10 years old and to have done some of the stuff and seen some of the stuff we did -- and that was always my best memory.

Q: I'll never forget being at Darlington this past Mother's Day and having Lynda, your mom telling that story about you guys forgetting your little sister at school, or something like that.

Petty: Oh, yeah -- that was big.

Q: But that's not all of it, because she would have had to be 'St. Mom' for what she did with you kids. Of course, dad gets the credit for 200 race wins, but mom deserves a lot too, right? 

Petty: Yeah, she does -- and she's the one that raised us, and even my father would tell you that. She's the one that, obviously, every Sunday when we weren't at the racetrack we'd go to Sunday school and to church.

We were part of the youth fellowship there at the Methodist Church, so church was an important part of what we did, and community was. And that's where it comes from, when people always ask me, 'How come you do the camp?'

Or 'Why do you do the Chick-Fil-A Charity Ride,' or 'Why do you do this?'

I think that goes back to being with my mother and my grandmothers, and how they raised us, and being at home. Not every weekend was consumed with going to the racetracks, though a lot of them were.

It was just being a part of something bigger than what you were.

8. What would your dream date be? Where and with whom?

Petty: Dream date, hmmm? That's probably good. Where?

I would have to say Ingrid Bergman or Lauren Bacall, somewhere in Hollywood about 1940-something -- just because I liked the clothes, I liked the cars and I felt like they were hot women.

They're still hot, even though they were in black-and-white. When I look at stuff like that, I'm like, an old movie freak.

9. What's your worst prank, either perpetrated by you, or done to you?

Petty: You know, I don't know, and the problem is, because there are so, so many. I mean, you go back to when Bud Moore and those guys were here -- with Harold Stott and those guys -- there were constantly snakes all over the garage area.

There were always people throwing snakes in cars. You could ride by in the garage area and somebody would throw a rubber snake into the right side window of your car.

And let me tell you something, when you're in a car, and you're strapped in, and there's a snake inside the car -- it takes your breath -- whether it's rubber or not, because you're not sure, you know what I mean?

You just don't know.

But those guys putting ex-lax in brownies, and I saw that happen, so that's a fact, Jack. Guys would be coming on each other trucks and eating stuff, and guys would be putting stuff in food just to make people sick, and whatever.

So there's been a lot, so that's tough. I don't even know where to start, with that one.

10. Finally, what would you consider your "Welcome to NASCAR" moment?

Petty: That's a good question, but I guess that happened to me, and I had just started driving, so it had to be running the 125s at Daytona.

And my father had told me if, at that time, if you're racing and you're racing for position on the last lap if you'll just ease into the guy's door a little bit, you know, that will make him check up and you can beat him.

So we're coming down to the last lap of the 125 that we were in and I'm on the outside of A.J. -- you know, A.J. Foyt? So as we come off Turn 4, I just decided, 'I'm going to give this a try.'

So I eased into his door a little bit (snaps fingers), and sure enough, he checks up and I beat him back to the line.

So as soon as the race is over, I'm like, 20 or 21 -- maybe not even that old -- and here comes A.J. across the garage area; and everybody knows A.J.'s reputation, you know what I mean?

So, I'm like, cowering a little bit, and he comes up and he's like, 'What in the X*!?X! was that?' You know, all explicit that I'm kinda bleeping out, there. 'What was that?'

And I'm like, 'Here's what happened. My father told me that if someone was passing you like that on the last lap, to just ease into their door a little bit, they'll check up and you can beat them.'

'I tried it, and it worked.'

And he said, 'Your father told you that?' And I said, 'Yeah,' and he said, 'OK.'

He turned around and walked off. That was all that was said, and I was like, 'Whew, I passed that one.'

So I figure my induction into NASCAR was, if I could pass not getting my butt whipped by A.J., I was gonna be safe.