Andretti still misses Petty

Dick Brinster

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2000 | 11:03 a.m.

DOVER, Del. - John Andretti's joy will be tempered when his little girl blows out the candle on her first birthday cake.

The beginning of Amelia Andretti's life on May 10 will be forever linked to the end of Adam Petty's.

"Every birthday will be a reminder," Andretti said. "That's not a negative. It's too easy to forget people and things, and Adam is just too important to be forgotten."

Petty's fatal crash May 12 at New Hampshire International Speedway - at the same spot where Kenny Irwin died eight weeks later - has made this a season of mourning in NASCAR.

"Adam was really close to us," Andretti said of the Busch Series driver from stock car racing's most famous family. "He was great with my kids, and I thought the world of him."

That sort of testimonial is not unique. The 19-year-old driver had a broad smile and a friendly manner. The 37-year-old Andretti, who drives for Petty Enterprises and would have been his teammate when Adam reached Winston Cup next year, thought of him as a younger brother.

Andretti, Adam's father, Kyle, and grandfather Richard Petty are dedicated to preserving happy memories of the youngster.

"Kyle and I will sit around and talk and laugh about Adam," said Andretti, himself part of a great racing heritage. "It never leaves you.

"Good weekends, bad weekends, they come and go. But this is never going to be over with."

He says Adam was the future of the now-struggling Petty Enterprises, everything the racing operation was geared toward. But Andretti would have felt the same way about him had Adam never turned a lap.

This has been the most difficult of all seasons for the Pettys. Lee, the 86-year-old family patriarch and racing pioneer, died April 5, just three days after Adam made his Winston Cup debut.

"So much has happened this year, and it's just piled against us," Andretti said. "I talk to The King and Kyle, and they are just 100-percent forward. So am I, but it rests heavy on everybody."

Andretti's escape is the race track.

"When I put on my helmet, everything in the world that previously existed doesn't," he said as he prepared for the MBNA.com 400 on Sunday at Dover Downs International Speedway. "For that period of time, I'm on what my wife calls racer's planet. I'm completely focused."

For Andretti, that means trying to win more races in the famed No. 43, which boss Richard drove to a NASCAR-record 200 victories.

The fortunes of the team have fallen steadily over the years. Andretti has one of his two career victories for Petty Enterprises, which has won just three times in the last 18 seasons.

This year has been a particularly bad one. Andretti is 23rd in points, and his seventh-place finish Sunday in Loudon, N.H., was his best and only his second top 10. Kyle has one top-10.

Both teams have been hurt by the losses of Lee and Adam, and the shifting of personnel between Andretti's Pontiac and the No. 44 of Kyle, now driven by Steve Grissom.

"It's been like watching a pinball game with our crew members," said Greg Steadman, Andretti's crew chief. "But I think we have the right people in the right places now, and we are going to be looking for results we know we can get."

And there is even more hope for next year. Dodge is returning to Winston Cup racing after two decades of Chrysler products sitting on the sidelines.

Petty Enterprises will be one of its teams. King Richard was Chrysler's point man for six of his seven series championships.

But Andretti already is guarding against overconfidence.

"The people think that just because we're going back to Dodge that in the next 205 races we'll have 200 wins," he said with a laugh.

Many on the circuit think NASCAR will be generous in approving Dodge's racing specs for next year, making the new entries as competitive as the Fords, Chevrolets and Pontiacs.

But Richard isn't counting on anything.

"It depends on what they let us have," he said. "Just say we're optimistic, but we're not terribly optimistic."

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