Promising Career Now Just a Memory

Michael Vega

Sunday, May 14, 2000 | 4:03 a.m.

Almost everyone seemed to agree that Adam Petty had a bright future as a NASCAR Winston Cup driver. He had, after all, the Petty pedigree. Though he was still in his second season on the Busch Series circuit, there was no doubt that Winston Cup was Adam Petty's destination.

It was widely known in the garage area that Petty Enterprises was grooming the 19-year-old son of NASCAR veteran Kyle Petty as the next heir to the throne after he made his Winston Cup debut last month at Texas Motor Speedway. But that event was quickly overshadowed when Lee Petty, the 86-year-old patriarch, died three days later.

On Friday, the auto racing community mourned the loss of another Petty when Adam died of head trauma he sustained in a crash during practice for Sunday's Busch 200 at New Hampshire International Speedway.

While Lee Petty's passing was not unexpected - he had been in failing health since a Feb. 9 stomach operation - Adam Petty's death was jarring because he was so young, so talented, and so full of life.

"The brightest stars often shine for a brief period of time," said Eddie Gossage, general manager of Texas Motor Speedway, where Petty made his Winston Cup debut in the DirecTV 500 April 2. "I'm glad my last memory of Adam was only a week ago, laughing and cutting up as we took part in the annual Kyle Petty Charity Motorcycle Ride Across America. Adam was always smiling."

Adam inherited that infectious smile from his father, Kyle, and his grandfather, Richard Petty, but Friday he brought so many to tears.

"Adam and I were joking around this morning right before practice, and then to have this happen is unreal," said Winston Cup driver Steve Park, who competed with Petty on the Busch circuit. "This hurts. I was on the motorcycle ride with Kyle the week before last, and we raised a lot of money for charity. The Pettys do a lot for other people, and it hurts that we can't do anything for them right now."

All anyone could do for the grieving Pettys was offer condolences and fond remembrances. The immediate outpouring was reminiscent of that following the tragedies endured by Bobby Allison, who lost two sons - Clifford, who was killed while making a practice run in his Busch car at Michigan in 1992, and Davey, the popular Winston Cup driver who was killed in a helicopter crash at Talladega, Ala., in 1993.

"To have someone so young and with such a bright future ahead of him die like this is a hard thing to swallow," said NASCAR driver Johnny Benson. "The Petty family has helped build this sport. It goes back to Lee, Richard, and Kyle, and I know it would have continued with Adam. They are almost like royalty in our sport. For a family that has done so much to this sport and then to have this happen is just terrible."

Going bump in the night

Tony Stewart spent last Saturday night stewing in the garage area at Richmond (Va.) International Speedway. A pit-road collision with rookie driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. had knocked Stewart out of the lead and back to 23d with 40 laps to go. It was a cosmic collision of sorts, between last year's star rookie and this year's rising comet and front-runner for the Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award.

Earnhardt Jr. became the first repeat winner on the Winston Cup circuit with his triumph in the Pontiac Excitement 400. It was his second victory in 16 career starts and came just four races after his first Winston Cup triumph, in the DirecTV 500.

But it came at Stewart's expense.

Stewart tried to put the frustration of this sophomore season in perspective when he calmly discussed the incident during Tuesday's Winston Cup teleconference.

"It was just racing luck," said Stewart, whose No. 20 Home Depot Pontiac suffered a flat left rear tire when it was clipped by the right front fender of Earnhardt's car as the rookie pulled into heavy traffic on pit road during a late-race caution period. "I haven't had any racing luck all year."

Last Saturday night, though, Stewart wasn't as composed. When he pulled into the garage, he gunned his engine loudly. When he climbed out, he was told to report to the NASCAR hauler. He stomped off for his postrace tete-a-tete with sanctioning officials and was followed by a swarm of media looking for an angry sound bite.

"Imagine you're playing against Shaquille O'Neal and you go up to slam dunk the ball and Shaq slams the ball in your face," Stewart said. "Nobody sticks a microphone in your face and says, 'Well, how does that make you feel?' They always finish the game and then they have a 15-minute period to cool off and they go in and do interviews.

"We don't have that luxury in our sport. As soon as we get out of the car, people are sticking microphones in your face. If I got out of the car and I wasn't upset about what happened, I wouldn't be driving Winston Cup. Nobody would want me in their race car.

"I wasn't mad because it was Dale. I wasn't mad because I felt like he did anything wrong. I was just mad at the circumstances. The next day I went fishing and I was fine.

"Was I still disappointed? Yeah. Was I mad about it anymore? Not at all. I found a way of looking at the positive side of it, and the positive of it was that we ended up in the Top 10. To come from 23d to eighth in the last 35 laps was a pretty good accomplishment."

As runner-up Terry Labonte stated afterward, Stewart had the best car on the track at the end of the race. But as taxing as this season has been - with 3 DNFs in 11 starts - Stewart knows there are many miles left to go, beginning next weekend with The Winston all-star race at Lowe's Speedway in Charlotte, N.C.

"It was just one of those nights that we thought everything was going to go our way and, in the end, we had some bad luck," Stewart said.

More miles to cover

NASCAR announced that it will be expanding to two new markets next year, with races at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., and Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. Both venues, still under construction, will be 1.5-mile triovals. "The addition of these two major markets promises to make the 2001 season an exciting one," said Mike Helton, senior vice president and chief operating officer for NASCAR. "We hope even more new fans will join with existing fans to enjoy another breakthrough year for our sport. The addition of the Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway provides two great new markets for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, the NASCAR Busch Series, drivers, teams, and sponsors." . . . While expansion may be all well and good, it no doubt will take a physical toll on drivers and their crews, prompting some car owners to expand their operations to include more employees and, possibly, entertain the idea of having split crews. "When you move to these number of races, the problem is that the strain (of running 36 weekends) goes to the crews who are on the road," said Joe Gibbs, who fields cars for Stewart and Bobby Labonte, the current Winston Cup points leader. "When you think about it, these guys are on the road from Thursday to Sunday. I think the drivers - they have more free time and are on their own schedules with their own jet planes - I think they can do it. But I think the people we run the risk of wearing out and running down and kind of messing up somebody's life would be the crew chief." And the way Gibbs sees it, "There is no way you can take the pressure off him, if he's got to go to these races, because he's the one who's got to make everything happen. So, as a consequence, what we need to do as a race team is find ways to give them a break. It's going to mean more people and more money being spent and, of course, that's going to drive up budgets, but I don't see any way around it."

Double feature

Winston Cup driver Robby Gordon announced last weekend that he was going to attempt double duty May 28 by driving the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same day. Clearly, Gordon believes he has some unfinished business at Indy, where last year he ran out of fuel and fell out of the lead with less than a lap to go. He will drive a car fielded by Indy Racing League owner John Menard. "It's been a topic we've thrown around for months between myself, John, and Mike Held (Gordon's Winston Cup owner)," said Gordon, who was thwarted in a similar effort three years ago with Team Sabco owner Felix Sabates when the Indy 500 was rained out. "We didn't want to take any focus away from our Winston Cup effort because that's where we're putting our future. But there's an off-week in May that's very convenient to make this happen." Gordon will use that date to qualify during the Indy 500 time trials next weekend. "With the cars John Menard and Tom Knapp put on the track, all I have to do is show up with my helmet and drive," said Gordon. "Greg Ray has done all the preseason testing and he's quick; hopefully that's a good sign for me. Honestly, if I wasn't going to Indy I'd probably be racing something else." . . . Before Gordon proceeds with his Indy-Charlotte Memorial Day shuttle plan, he may want to heed the advice of Stewart, who pulled off the double play but had this to say: "It was very physically demanding and that's the No. 1 reason why we decided not to do it again this year. The Indy 500 started at 11 o'clock in the morning and the 600 didn't end until around 11 at night. So, about 1,100 miles and 12 hours later, there wasn't much of me left." . . . When the Winston Cup circuit arrives at NHIS July 9 for its first of two visits to the mile oval this season, Patriots fans might recognize the burly jackman of Elliott Sadler's No. 21 Citgo Ford. It's none other than Tim Goad, 34, the former defensive lineman who played seven seasons in Foxborough after being drafted in 1987 out of North Carolina. After his 10-year NFL career ended with the Baltimore Ravens in 1996, Goad, who grew up in rural Virginia as a huge NASCAR fan, joined the Wood Brothers crew in September 1998. Now he spends his Sundays wrangling in the NASCAR pits instead of toiling in NFL trenches.

archive