Inside the Halls of Petty: Learning from Pocono

After a weekend like we had at Pocono you come home a little frustrated, a little angry and wondering what went wrong, when and where. It's not a good feeling. It's not a good feeling for me, for Richard, Kyle, Bobby, the guys that work here inside Petty Enterprises and all our partners that are watching us each week. So, the question becomes: What do you do? The greatest thing about Petty Enterprises is that we've been racing for a long time and quitting is never the answer.

Kyle Petty was 34th at Pocono.

Petty Enterprises

2007 season

	Labonte	Petty
Starts	21	16
Wins	0	0
Top-5s	0	1
Top-10s	1	1
DNFs	1	0
Avg. Start	22.6	34.3
Avg. Finish	22.5	27.7

• Superstore: Labonte | Petty
• Driver Page: Labonte | Petty

Monday's are days for reflection about the weekend at Petty Enterprises. A day to digest everything, think about everything and take actions to go to the next level. We pull in the drivers, the crew chiefs, our engineers and other important staff to get very detailed discussion. It's a study hall of the best we have.

We know that we didn't have a good weekend at Pocono. We have been working with Dodge and Evernham Motorsports to study all of our engineering packages. The new Dodge nose and different setups have had our focus the past few weeks. Indianapolis and Pocono are two flat tracks where you need to find grip. We did struggle with that this past weekend, but now we have to focus on Watkins Glen. The last road course of the season is going to be a chance to get us back in the right direction.

You have a bad weekend and the only thing you want to do is get back on the track. That's the only thing that is going to make you feel better. Luckily, and we're blessed to do this, but this is our lives. We live to race and to have another chance at victory. We don't like races like we had at Pocono. We don't like finishing behind anyone for any reason. Our guys are working just as hard as anyone. I'm sure when the Penske team [of Kurt Busch] went 51 races without a win they weren't happy, but they didn't give up, either.

That's why I'm glad I'm here at Petty Enterprises. The heart and determination of these guys is unparallel to any other team out there. The guys here now want to win as bad as anyone. Kyle and Bobby want to win and The King expects us to. The guys here didn't come in to work on Monday with smiles on their faces. Instead, they had that look of even more determination and hunger. You don't race to have a bad weekend. That's why we're thinking about Watkins Glen.

The guys are pretty focused on getting Kyle and Bobby back up front. The cars have been tested at Road Atlanta. We have collected data and have a good start early in the week. We have more meetings and discussions the rest of the week before we fly up north again. The meetings are designed for one purpose and that is to win races. It's our jobs.

In closing this week, I want to let everyone know that we're in this to win. Petty Enterprises is committed to winning for our fans and our partners. You have a bad weekend and it does bother you. It's supposed to, but the next race starts the next day. We don't have one day where we aren't working on winning.

This weekend is a different challenge. It's a road course and we're back with the Avenger. We had both cars running pretty strong at Sonoma earlier this season. We are working, even the minute that you are reading this, on ways to win this race. Petty Enterprises has a lot of pride and we're ready to get back to the track for winning results.

See you in Victory Lane,
Robbie Loomis