CUP: Martinsville Notebook

Sprint Cup

CUP: Martinsville Notebook

Kyle Petty to be honored Monday for Victory Junction camp work…

Mike Hembree | Posted March 30, 2012 Martinsville, VA

Kyle Petty is founder of the Victory Junction Gang Camp. (Photo: Getty Images)

Kyle Petty To Be Honored – Kyle Petty, founder of the Victory Junction Gang Camp, will be among those honored Monday in New York City at a celebration spotlighting the late actor Paul Newman.

The benefit event will raise money for Newman’s Association of Hole in the Wall Camps charity. The N.C.-based Victory Junction Camp, started by the Petty racing family in honor of the late Adam Petty, is part of the Hole in the Walls Camps group.

“We are proud of our relationship with Hole in the Wall and Paul Newman,” Petty said. “His standards for a camp that desires to give chronically ill kids a place to ‘raise a little hell’ were exactly in line with what Adam had dreamed and why Victory Junction wanted to be part of the Hole in the Wall family.”

Among others expected to attend the event are Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon and Trisha Yearwood. The event will be hosted by Joanne Woodward, Newman’s widow.

A Waltrip Run To New Orleans? – Michael Waltrip and his driver, Clint Bowyer, could be in New Orleans watching basketball Monday night.

Waltrip said Friday that Bowyer has offered tickets and travel for him if Kentucky and/or Kansas wind up in Monday’s NCAA championship game.

Waltrip is a Kentucky fan; Bowyer is on the Kansas side of the equation.

“Clint has said we’ll be there,” Waltrip said.

And Baby Makes … – Kevin Harvick is another week closer to being a father, and he is constantly reminded of that fact by the work going on at his house.

Harvick and his wife, DeLana, are expecting their first child – a son – in July.

“Well, right now they are working on nurseries, playrooms, and the back yard has been completely dismantled,” Harvick said Friday. “It’s a pile of dirt now. We’re digging out swimming pools and all kinds of stuff to start working in that direction – everything from baby gates, to dingers on elevators, you name it.

“There’s a lot that’s being changed. It’s been fun, though. It’s fun to walk up there and see his clothes sitting in the closet and know that it’s real and coming that direction pretty fast. The time is going by pretty quick already.”

Townley Offers Apology – Toyota Truck driver John Wes Townley apologized again Friday for his Feb. 7 street-car accident that resulted in a driving-under-the-influence charge and a probation penalty from NASCAR.

Townley’s vehicle crashed in Oconee County, GA.

“What happened that night, I take full responsibility for it,” Townley said. “It reflected poorly upon my team, on my sponsors and everyone else, and I want to sincerely apologize. It’s up to me moving forward to put this behind me and to make better decisions in the future and to really learn from this.

“I know that a lot of these words are real easily spoken, but it’s actions in the future that I’m going to be judged by.”

Townley was 14th fastest in Friday’s opening Truck practice for Saturday’s Kroger 250.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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Mike Hembree

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