Despite ‘pit stops,’ Petty happy with his Vegas run

Monday, Jan. 26, 2004 | 9:55 a.m.

Kyle Petty has started 678 NASCAR Winston Cup races in his 25-year career, so you'll have to excuse the third-generation driver from stock-car racing's first family for introducing a new concept to Sunday's Las Vegas Marathon.

Petty, 43, made several "pit stops" en route to finishing 160th (out of 206) in his division in his first attempt at running a half-marathon. Petty, who begins a two-day NASCAR test today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, covered the 13-mile distance in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 41 seconds -- including the unscheduled stops for bathroom breaks.

"It was obvious I didn't know what I was doing because I drank too much water last night and I had to stop about every time I saw a green (portable toilet), so that slowed me down a little bit," Petty said after his run from Sloan to Sunset Park.

"I don't usually do that in (an auto) race, but I've never run a race like this so I didn't know how much to drink. I was up all night using the bathroom and had to stop about every 15 minutes out there."

Nevertheless, Petty accomplished his goals of finishing the race and running sub-10-minute miles. The son of legendary racer Richard Petty finished about 62 minutes behind race winner Jason Warick of Canada but placed ahead of nearly 1,200 runners.

"I got my butt beat out here today," Petty said with a laugh. "Surely the guy that won the thing had to have run it in about an hour or so. I was about an hour slower than him but that's OK -- I've been about that slow on the racetrack sometimes."

Although he runs regularly back home in Randleman, N.C., to stay in shape for the grueling 36-race NASCAR season, Petty said he had never thought about running in a half-marathon until he saw an ad last month for the Las Vegas event.

"It was just on a whim that I decided to do it back in December," Petty said. "My son, Austin, had a running magazine and we were looking through it and it had an ad for this run. I looked at the date and it was the 25th of January. I looked at my schedule and I said, 'well, I'm testing out there on Monday and Tuesday so I'll just go out there and run it.'

"I run at home just to try to stay in shape but this gave me a goal to shoot at to try to get in shape over the winter, to bring my heart rate down and try to be able to run any distance. This is a really well-organized deal and they made you feel really welcomed and it was fun for everybody."

So much fun, in fact, that Petty said he might compete in the full marathon next year.

"I'll have to look and see how this year goes but I wouldn't mind trying to train for this one -- come back and run the full marathon next year," he said. "That would be pretty cool because it's such a well-organized event.

"It's just a shame that there's so much going on in Vegas that the marathon kind of gets lost in it ... but it's definitely a world-class event."

Petty, who is CEO of his family-run Petty Enterprises racing team, will use this week's test sessions at LVMS as a final preparation for another world-class event -- the NASCAR Nextel Cup season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 15. Although Petty Enterprises' two-car team struggled last season, Petty is nothing but optimistic about the upcoming season.

Petty will drive the team's No. 45 Georgia-Pacific Dodge while Jeff Green will be behind the wheel of the No. 43 Cheerios Dodge.

"The year is shaping up to be a really, really good year," Petty said. "We had a really good test at Daytona with both cars. Jeff went to (North Carolina Speedway in) Rockingham Wednesday and tested and had a really good test there -- we were really pleased with it.

"If we can bust off a good test out here, that would be three real good tests to start the season with and we'll be in good shape."