Pocono A Challenge for Everyone
Petty Counts on Experience After 47 Starts At Track

This weekend, Kyle Petty and the #45 National Tire and Battery Dodge team head to the 2.5-mile Pocono ( Penn. ) Raceway, located in the city of Long Pond , for Sunday's Pocono 500.

Petty will be making his 48 th career start at Pocono this weekend.  Petty has the most starts at Pocono than any other current full-time driver.  Petty grabbed a win in 1993 at Pocono.  Petty has also collected two top-five and 12 top-10 finishes at the flat, triangular-shaped oval. 

Petty will be carrying the colors of National Tire and Battery for the second time this season.  The first race with National Tire and Battery as a sponsor Petty finished eighth at the Atlanta ( Ga. ) Motor Speedway.   

Comments from Petty as he prepares for Sunday's Pocono 500:

How does experience help at Pocono?

"I'm not sure that experience helps because it's still tough every time you go there.  I think you can get a better idea of what to do through experience, but Pocono is a different animal.  The turns are so different.  It's not like anything else we see.  If you're racing Pocono for the first time, yeah, it's probably going to be a little different.

            "The past few years we've seen some of the Cup rookie's race in the ARCA race on Saturday to get more experience.  That's probably a smart thing.  The only way to get used to Pocono is to run laps.  Pocono is a tough track to learn."

Do you ever master Pocono?

"I don't think so.  It's just too hard to get your car balanced.  You're never going to have a 'perfect' car at Pocono.  You might have a car that's good in Turn One or through the Tunnel Turn, but you're never going to have a car that's perfect in all three turns.  You just try to get a good balance and hope everything falls into place.

"We've seen some guys have a lot of success. Bobby (Labonte) has had a lot of success there.  Rusty (Wallace) was good here and so was Tim Richmond.  You look at those guys and they are guys that made the best out of their cars.  I think Bobby (Labonte) knows how to do that. That's the trick to Pocono.  You have to make the best with what you have."   

Is it still exciting to go to Pocono?

"It's a fun place to race.  It's a like a road course and a little like a superspeedway at the same time.  It's different.  It's not like a lot of the tracks that we race on today.  Dover was different and Pocono is different too.  It's a good change of pace after competing two weeks at Charlotte .  Pocono is just a different challenge.

            "It's a nice area and the fans just love racing.  They are into it at Pocono.  It's pretty cool to see how excited they get.  I'm looking forward to the race.  We had a good run with National Tire and Battery at Atlanta and hopefully we can have another strong run with them this weekend."