NASCAR Rocks

The pit wall was lined with writers and photographers hoping to catch the glimpse of the peace summit which was about to start. The cars of the two drivers Denny Hamlin and Kyle Petty, who were attacking each other on the track and off the track the whole of the previous week, were lined up in a nose to tail fashion in a very convenient way in the qualifying line Friday at Kansas Speedway, this offering the much awaited perfect reconciliation opportunity between the two.

But nothing happened just it didn’t need to.

“My rule is, Sunday night at midnight, I stop thinking about the previous week,” Petty said right after his qualifying lap. “You spend too much time thinking about last week’s race, you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

Petty vs. Hamlin

In the blue corner, stood Kyle Petty at a good 6-2 and 195 pounds, saying: “We were a little bit loose. I guess it’s my fault. I watched the Busch race yesterday and I knew Denny was sick, I just didn’t know he was hallucinating and needed three lanes to get up off the corner because he ran all over us. I guess he is in a race by himself.”

At 6-0 and 170 pounds, Denny Hamlin in the rec corner gave the statement: “I know Kyle gets run over a lot and the reason is he’s so far off the pace. I firmly believe in my heart he was trying to get out of the way. I was right there on his bumper, on the inside of him. I think he was trying to go low and when he did, he checked up. That’s the reason stuff happens.”

“We’ve had a tough month or so,” said the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who was third in points before NASCAR’s regular season came to an end. “The races haven’t gone smooth for us. Things have always happened in the races, whether it’s a pit-road incident or whatever. If we can just get one smooth race behind us, I feel like that will give us the boost that we need. We’re not out of it by any means.”

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