Weather Forecasting for Saturday Night
Cool Temperatures Expected

This weekend, Kyle Petty and the #45 Wells Fargo Dodge head to the 1.5-mile Lowe's Motor Speedway for Saturday night's Bank of America 500.  Petty will be looking to make his 780 th career start and 50 th at the track.

The Bank of America 500 will be the last Saturday night race of the season.  The race will begin shortly after 7:00 p.m. local time.  The expected cool conditions will maximize speeds on a track that was recently repaved.

Questions for Petty as he prepares for Saturday night's Bank of America 500:

How does the weather affect Lowe's Motor Speedway ?

“This track has always been weather sensitive.  It just has, but this new surface has lessened that equation a little bit.  The new surface has balanced it out, but it's still a pretty drastic change from day-to-night at Charlotte .  The track, right now, has a ton of grip in it.  At night, most tracks get faster.  In May, this track was lightening fast at night. I think we'll see the same thing.  It's going to be cooler.  We'll see guys flying around here for qualifying.

“The race will be fast too. Cooler temperatures at night, and it's supposed to be pretty cool Saturday night, I expect to see us really hitting some high speeds.  These engines are really going to love that cool air.  I don't think we'll see any problems, but we will see a lot of fast speeds.  Everyone should tune in Thursday for qualifying.  I think that's when we'll see some exciting stuff.”

How fast is too fast?

“It's relative. Speed is relative.  Does it feel fast going 70 miles per hour down an eight lane highway? No, probably not, but I bet it does if you are going down some single lane dirt road.  It's the same in a race car.  It depends on the track.

“I think NASCAR has seen its limit.  We pushed it at Talladega and they didn't like what they were seeing.  They made a change.  I think we reached our maximum speeds at Charlotte in May. I think we'll see fast speeds this weekend, but nothing that will be outrageous.  Atlanta is still fast, Texas is fast and Charlotte is fast too.  I think the track, cars and drivers can handle it.  We're not out of control out there.  I don't expect anything to happen this weekend.  We put on a good show in May.  I think we'll see the same thing this weekend.”  

You have stepped up recently in qualifying.

“I think this team has done a great job over the last few weeks in qualifying.  I think when we made the crew chief change and had Billy (Wilburn) come in we've had some good qualifying runs.  Talladega was a great effort for us.  We really had a good run there.  We had a good qualifying run at Dover too.  I'm sure Billy has something big planned for us this weekend.

“The Evernham Engines have been really good for us too.  Those guys are really working hard.  Our guys preparing this car every weekend are working hard too.  I think everyone has stepped up for the qualifying runs.  We haven't had the best luck in the races, but we are looking for a good run this weekend.  I'm looking forward to getting to the track and seeing what we've got.”