Michael Waltrip Racing became the third team in a week to make Crew Chief changes. (Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)
John Roberts: Welcome gentlemen. I know it is a little bit windy here. What hasn’t changed is this ongoing feud. What do you make of this ongoing back and forth? A couple weeks ago Roush was calling somebody from Toyota an ankle biting Chihuahua. Now he says somebody had stolen a proprietary part and they have recovered it from a Toyota team. Toyota has come back and said, hey man it was all an accident.
Kyle Petty: I don’t know what to think about the last part, the latter part about the stealing of the parts and Toyota’s mistakes. It is just verbal sparring. I think some things went on with Michael in that first year and things have gone on recently with the Roush organization and you know Ithink their nerves are right there at the very edge and the Toyota guys keep picking and Roush keeps picking back.
Bob Pockrass, NASCAR Scene: Well, Michael Waltrip said it was a mistake and they didn't mean to do it and they offered to give it back and you know, that's kind of what he says and I mean, do you believe him? The question is, how long did it take? Did it take a couple of months for Jack to finally figure out who had the part? Did it take Michael a couple of months to figure out he had it?
John Roberts: What was the part?
Bob Pockrass, NASCAR Scene: It was a sway bar. And so the question is if this piece was so important why did Roush Fenway wait this long? If Michael's team had this part why did they wait so long to give it back?
John Roberts: And how proprietary is this sway bar? Did I say that right?
Kyle Petty: I think right now with what we're working on with bump stops, what we're working on with coil binding springs and what you're working on with the springs that we run. They're just ungodly expensive. The materials that they're made out of, you know, NASCAR went a few years ago and limited what we could make rods out of, what we could make pistons out of, they had a lot of weight limits on things. There's no limits on sway bars. We can change a sway bar over there and change the nose percentage in a car two percent or two-tenths of a percent. As much as that. So when you start looking at that, lighter sway bars made out of different material, made out of "space-age" material, crap, who knows. Maybe the sway bar costs thirty or forty thousand dollars. That would be proprietary. If it's just your typical off-the-shelf sway bar, I don't know man, that just not that much.
Bob Pockrass, NASCAR Scene: If you had a thirty thousand dollar sway bar, wouldn't you make sure it didn't get in anybody else's hands?
Kyle Petty: If I had a thirty thousand dollar sway bar I'd pay somebody to look after it every day. I can say that right now. That would be his job.
Kyle Petty isn’t one to mince words. Kyle goes toe to toe with members of the media as they discuss and debate the top stories in NASCAR. Fans bombard drivers LIVE trackside with in your face questions that demand answers. The clock is ticking and guests must answer before time runs out. It’s nonstop action that will have race junkies on the edge of their seats. If you have what it takes to go head-to-head with the pros, “Tradin’ Paint” with Kyle Petty is for you.
