Richard Petty Talks 2016 To Open Media Tour Day Two

The 34th annual Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour continued on Wednesday with the second of three days of media events and appearances by NASCAR’s top drivers as they prepare for the upcoming 2016 race season.

Day Two of the media tour was Ford Wednesday, with all of NASCAR’s top Ford teams meeting with the media at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte, NC, and appropriately the opening event of the day was highlighted by seven-time NASCAR Champion and 2010 Hall of Fame inductee Richard Petty.

Richard Petty Motorsports entered 2015 with a lot of optimism after making the Chase the previous year, but Aric Almirola and the iconic No. 43 couldn’t match the success of 2014, coming up one position short of making the Chase.

With the new season, comes new changes for RPM, including a new driver for the their second team with Brian Scott moving up from the Xfinity Series to run for rookie of the year in Sprint Cup. The team has also re-numbered the No. 9 to No. 44, bringing back the number that the Petty’s had campaigned since 1954, with such drivers as Jim Paschal, Kyle Petty and NASCAR Hall of Famer Joe Weatherly.

The season-opening Daytona 500 will mark the first time the Petty has run a no. 44 car since 2009.

“If you look back at the Petty heritage, we’ve run the 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 and 45 numbers, so we’ve been kinda following that deal,” said Petty. “So it’s really like bringing the number home is the way I’m looking at it.”

RPM also has full sponsorship for both teams – re-signing all the primary sponsors on the No. 43 and bringing in Albertson’s and Shore Lodge as sponsors on Scott’s car – something Petty says gives the team something to build on in attracting more sponsorship.

“The big deal is it’s harder to land a major sponsor, the kind that used to take up all the races,” said Petty. “Over a period of time, it’s got too expensive for one company to be able to take all the races, so to find a company to take 15-20 races – that’s a major deal. And then you fill in with other companies that come back and some new ones too. So after we’ve done a decent job for them, that makes it easier for us for find other sponsors.”

Next up on the tour was Roush-Fenway Racing, led by team owner Jack Roush and his returning Sprint Cup driver lineup of veteran Greg Biffle leading a young group of drivers that includes Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

After years as a perennial championship contender, Roush’s Ford entries were barely able to crack the top 20 in points, missing out on the Chase and going winless for the first time since 1996.

Roush said he teams were behind from the get-go in 2015 and didn’t address the problems soon enough to get their program back on track, something the team hopes to change in 2016.

Looking to improve their performance on the track, RFR has made several key additions in the off-season, adding Kurt Romberg as technical director of aerodynamics, Vojin Jaksic as special projects manager and Dr. Ken Day as manager of simulation. The team also pared down their Xfinity operation to just two full-time teams in 2016.

“We think we’ve made changes that are going to rectify the problems from last season,” said Roush. “We’re going to have less autonomy among the teams for making decision on traditional judgements based on what they see other cars doing and be more of a science-led, engineering –led technically motivated organization. I think we’ve added to some people that will get us working in that direction.

“Roush-Fenway has a history of being successful and taking the measure of our competition, and ourselves, and being able to adjust accordingly, and I feel we’ve like we’ve done that for 2016.”

Following Roush Fenway Racing on the media tour was a visit to the Ford Tech Center in Concord, NC, where officials from Ford Motor Company proudly showed off their 2016 version of the Ford Fusion Sprint Cup car.

Among the big changes for the all the Ford teams in 2016 will be a new look for the Fusion, with a new body style featuring an updated front grill more like it’s production-model counterpart. The grill is more rounded than before with a new inset beneath the grill and a more refined edge to the splitter as well.

Ford engineers spent several years designing the production-model Fusion, accounting for 25 gigabytes of data and “more lines of code than a Boeing 777” according to Ford chief technical officer Raj Nair.

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Also joining the media tour at the Ford Tech Center were the famed Wood Brothers Racing Team, who will be returning to full-time competition next season for the first time since 2006, wading into the Rookie of the Year battle with driver Ryan Blaney behind the wheel of the famous No. 21 Ford.

The Wood Brothers, who first began racing in 1953 with family patriarch Glen Wood, scaled back to a part-time schedule to concentrate on getting the program back on track, running mainly on super speedways and intermediate tracks. The efforts paid off with an underdog win in the 2011 Daytona 500 with driver Trevor Bayne.

For 2016, the Wood Brothers – led by Len and Eddie Wood – are hoping lightning strikes again with Blaney.

“I’d like to think that we could be in victory circle reasonably soon, maybe the Daytona 500,” said Eddie Wood. “That’s one of our favorite races, but I think building on our performance last year, some of our best races we were fourth and seventh, things like that, build on some more of those.”

Blaney, who started off as a development driver for Team Penske and ran a part-time schedule for the team in 2015, will also drive an Xfinity Series entry for Penske in 2016.

Blaney will become the latest driver in a long line of some of stockcar racing’s biggest stars who have driven the iconic No. 21 car, including Hall of Famers David Pearson, Junior Johnson, Cale Yarborough and Dale Jarrett.

“It’s one of the most recognizable paint schemes out there,” said Blaney. “It’s really special to me to just to be a part of this organization that has been around for 66 years. You look back at all the drivers that have run for them, it’s pretty amazing to be a part of that list.”

Finishing out Ford Wednesday was Team Penske, who will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in the 2016 season – featured in a new exhibit unveiled at the Hall of Fame honoring team owner Roger Penske, Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano and 2012 Sprint Cup Champion Brad Keselowski.

Over the last 50 years, Penske has racked up 430 wins in NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula One and the American Le Man Series among others. Penske drivers have tallied 16 Indianapolis 500 victories and two wins in the Daytona 500.

“When I look back over 50 years, I think about all the great people that have worked for the company and have driven these race cars,” said Penske. “We’ve had 85 drivers in our 430 wins, and to me it’s all about those guys who have put their necks on the line.

“You have to think about the first time we won the Indy 500, that’s pretty special when you think about 1972, but each one of those victories, the 16 that we’ve had, is something special. The Sprint Cup championship, the Sebring 12-hour race, the Daytona 500. I really don’t have a favorite because each time we win, that’s my favorite day.”

Perhaps no other driver has a better season last year than Logano, and if it were not for some controversial actions on the track, he might very well have been among the four vying for the championship in the final race at Homestead.

Logano enjoyed a career year in 2015. Six wins. 22 top-five finishes. No DNF’s. He started the Chase tied for the second seed and won three straight races, but after getting walled by Matt Kenseth at Martinsville in the third round of the Chase, Logano was on the outside looking in and left wondering about a season lost.

Rather than hang their head on what could have been, Logano preferred to look at the positive things that came out of the experience.

“The one thing I did realize – yes there was a lot of cheers when I got crashed, but I also saw more 22 t-shirts and more 22 hats and more stuff being sold than ever before,” said Logano. “There was a true positive that came out of all that, but we naturally as people draw to the negative side of things. Maybe it’s because I’m a positive thinker, that’s the way I get through life, I look at the silver lining, ‘Ok, where did I grow from this whole thing’ internally as a person and externally as a team. We gained a lot of fans out of this whole thing, and the way my fans supported me is greatly appreciated.

“Most wins, most poles. 22 top-fives – those are championship stats. We just don’t have the trophy, but we know how to do it. It won’t be a fluke if it happens, we know what were supposed to do to make it happen.”