Who Should Drive the 45?

Petty Enterprises has announced that Kyle Petty’s sabbatical will be extended by one more race to insure that the 45 Dodge will make the field at Indianapolis. This insurance will take the form of Terry Labonte and his twelve year old past champion’s provisional. Here’s my suggestion to Petty Enterprises, if you can talk Terry into it, keep him in the car for the rest of the season.

Here are their head-to-head stats from their 745 meetings:

Kyle has prevailed 276 times, while Terry has come out on top 469 times.
Victories: Kyle 8, Terry 18
Top 5’s: Kyle 51, Terry 166
Top 10’s: Kyle 170, Terry 320
Avg. finish: Kyle 20.5, Terry 16.0

I understand that this comparison has limited value. Clearly, Terry Labonte has had a stellar on-track career while Petty’s has been disappointing. So, let’s look just at this current season:

Labonte has an average finish of 27.5 in six races, including a 16th at Daytona earlier this month.

Petty has an average finish of 34.3 in nine races, and couldn’t keep the car in the Top 35. His best finish was 27th at Richmond. He has one start better than 35th.

Neither of these guys are the future of the team. When Kyle Petty is kept out of the car to make sure that it makes the show, however, that’s simply an embarrassment.

As we engage in our patented “Rowdy Silly Season Wild Ass Speculation” program, we talk mostly about the 20, 33, 1 and 12. The 45 never comes up. I sincerely hope that it has been coming up at the Petty Enterprises race shop, and that we will see someone other than the number one son in that ride next season. They don’t have the horses to attract a Ryan Newman or Martin Truex, Jr. At this point, I don’t even know that they can score Casey Mears. Yesterday, we heard that Jeremy Mayfield wanted to get back into the car. Maybe a wash out like Mayfield can find new life while bringing new life to the 45.

~Cutler

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