Petty, Labonte could switch seats

[Schwartz Fan]

Trading places: Petty, Labonte could switch seats
Labonte's champ's provisional could keep No. 45 on track
By Joe Menzer, NASCAR.COM
October 20, 2007
08:21 PM EDT


MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Even as he prepares to make his 810th career Nextel Cup start, moving him into fifth place all-time, Kyle Petty's eyes are on the future.

And if the future entails Petty falling out of the top 35 in owner points in his No. 45 Dodge, make no mistake. He will do whatever it takes to keep racing, and to get that car back within the top 35 as quickly as possible.

That includes possibly switching seats with fellow Petty Enterprises driver Bobby Labonte, whose No. 43 sits in 18th place in owner points heading into Sunday's Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway. As a past Cup champion, Labonte is permitted under current NASCAR rules to use a championship provisional to make up to six races per season.

Petty said Saturday that he would not hesitate to switch cars if it was necessary to ensure that both Petty Enterprises cars kept lining up for the Cup races -- whether that would be at the beginning of next season or at the end of this one.

Teams within the top 35 in owner points are automatically guaranteed starting positions in races, and teams that finish one season within the top 35 are guaranteed starting spots regardless of qualifying speeds for the first five races of the following season, when the Top 35 field is re-set again.

"Yeah, we'd consider it. I'm not gonna lie," Petty said. "Look, as long as they don't change the rules and the rulebook is written that way, we're in the business to run racecars. We have two racecars -- the 43 and the 45. Those are our racecars. Right now Richard Petty owns both racecars, and we've got one driver with the championship provisional and another driver who is on the bubble. Whatever it takes to get those in, I don't see the issue with it.

"Michael [Waltrip] used Dale Jarrett. The Wood Brothers used Bill Elliott. Other guys have used Terry Labonte. So what's the issue? I mean, it's out there. I'm not going to fall on the sword and say, 'No, we're above that. We're not going to do it.' It's in the rulebook, man. It's not illegal."

Labonte seemed surprised when asked about it Saturday morning. But he said he would be a team player no matter what is decided -- should Petty fall out of the top 35.

"I'm not in that program. I don't know about that program," Labonte said at first.

But then he added: "I probably don't have a stance. I just do what I'm told, I guess. We'll have to wait and see how that turns out."

It isn't the first time this possibility has surfaced, Labonte said.

"We talked about it last year because he was in that same position at Homestead [going into the final race]. It didn't happen," he said.

Petty said he obviously intends to run as well as he can to try to maintain or improve his current position in the standings. But if not, he said he will not apologize for doing whatever he thinks needs to be done.

"It's not the best way to do things," Petty admitted. "It's not the best way to do things at all -- but whatever it would take for us to survive as a company and continue to race, that's what we will do."


Petty said he blames mostly himself for the precarious position in which his team currently finds itself. He sat out six races to move into the television broadcast booth for TNT, and missed another scheduled start after breaking his hand in frustration following an early exit from a race at Watkins Glen.

He said that his team draws confidence from some of the successes Labonte has enjoyed in the No. 43 car, but that it is difficult to draw comparisons between the organization's two teams.

"You're comparing apples to oranges," Petty said. "Remember, I sat out six races in the middle of the year. I broke my hand and sat out [another]. I've hindered this team more than anything else, with my actions. I think this is a good, solid team. Probably if they had a good, solid driver for all 36 races, it would be a better team than what they are.

"Chad [McCumbee] did a good job for us, and John [Andretti] did a good job for us [as substitute drivers]. We've run different drivers through here and they all did a good job for us -- but at the same time, you look at it and say, 'Hmmm. That throws a kink in everything.' It upsets the apple cart right in the middle of the season.

"We should be better than what we are, and we feel like we are better than where we are in points. I don't think we're probably as solid a team as the 43 is, but we're not the 35th-place team, either. We should be in the top 20 or 25."

Although he plans to run a similar schedule next year -- he's under contract to move to the TNT broadcast booth for another six races -- Petty insisted that this year's experiences will help make 2008 better.

"We'll be better next year doing it because we know what to expect. It's just like I say with Bobby: the first year I don't think he realized how big a step it was to go from Gibbs to Petty Enterprises, how big a building process it was," Petty said. "Once he understood the building process, he understood what he had to do and what his team had to do to move forward, and I think they've done that this year.

"I think for us [in the No. 45] this year, we threw it out there and said, 'Hey, guess what? Your driver is going to get out of the car for six races and sit on his butt and talk about you guys from the booth.' You don't know what it means until you get there and you do it. But now that you understand how it flows and what it is, I think we'll understand how to make it work better -- how to take whatever negatives there are in that from a team aspect, and mitigate that damage to get more positive results in those six races."

And if all else fails, plan to fall back on the legal switch of cars. Kyle has still another possibility floating around in his head, too.

"We've got Richard Petty. Put him in there," he said of his famous father, now 70, who owns a record seven driving championships and presumably all the provisional start benefits that go along with them.

Kyle was joking, of course.

Or at least he appeared to be.










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NASCAR.COM - Trading places: Petty, Labonte could switch seats - Oct 20, 2007

[wopher]

Hey go for it............