Petty nears retirement with sharp skills intact

DOVER, Del. – For a driver who turned 47 on Saturday, Kyle Petty was set to celebrate with the perfect birthday gift: time off.

It’s not quite a vacation for Petty, who will still visit NASCAR tracks every weekend. He’s leaving the No. 45 Dodge for a spin in the broadcast booth.

Not even his best finish in a decade could make him waver in his decision to temporarily dump his ride to work as a NASCAR race analyst for TNT.

“I don’t have 10 years left of driving,” Petty said. “I’ve got to start looking for something else to do. I can’t write, but I can run my mouth.”

He showed in last week’s Coca-Cola 600 that he still can drive.

Petty stunned the rest of the field when he finished third at Lowe’s Motor Speedway – his first top five in 10 years. Petty could take some added momentum with him after today’s race at Dover International Speedway, where he won in 1995 and finished eighth in the fall race on the mile concrete track in 2005.

If Petty does end up with another strong run, he still wouldn’t regret the transition to TV.

“If I was 21, I’d be excited for Kyle Petty,” he said. “But I’m 47. I’m at a different place in my career.”

The win meant more to his Petty Enterprises team.

“They’ve worked for three or four years and really had nothing to show for it,” Petty said. “From a team aspect, we were a lot more motivated to come to Dover and I think everybody was pumped up a lot.”

While Petty acknowledges his days as a driver are likely ending, he’s not ready to blow out the candles on his career yet.

“Right now, I wake up every morning and I love to get in a race car,” he said. “If I run 43rd, I still had a good day.”

When former driver Benny Parsons died of lung cancer complications in January it opened a spot on the TNT broadcast team. Petty dabbled in broadcasting before this year and said he wasn’t necessarily looking to make the move into TV until this opportunity came up. About the only thing tougher than hitching a ride with a NASCAR team might be finding a spot in a two- or three-man broadcast team.