Kyle Petty (Getty Images for NASCAR)Here’s more from my interview with Kyle Petty. You should note that we spoke last week and so when he mentions “this week” he’s really talking about last week.


Me: I know that you were on a Fitness TV show talking about your fitness regimen and health being a race car driver. It’s not something that people talk a lot about with NASCAR in terms of being an athlete. So how important is that to a race car driver to be physically fit and healthy and to have strength in the car?

Petty: Incredibly important. I think most people assume that if you play stick and ball sports you’re naturally an athlete, you’re in the best shape that you can be in and that’s the way it is. I think you’ve got to be in shape to drive a car at 180 or 190 miles an hour or to make split second decisions that can almost in some instances be life and death decisions. So when you look at it like that from your mental sharpness to your physical sharpness and that goes hand in hand. You hear so much about exercise and how that stabilizes and what that does to your mental well being and your attitudes, I think exercise is important.

When you go through the field now and you can go from top to bottom in the Sprint Cup field all these guys have exercise regimens that they follow. I think it’s important in our sport now probably more so than it’s ever been and that’s why we’re very blessed and very fortunate to have the fan base that we have, that believe in the things that we do, that want to see healthy drivers and want drivers to be an example for them.

That’s why to be apart of and to be a spokesperson for Prostate Cancer Awareness Week which is this week, and Prostate Cancer Awareness Month this month [is important], to do that, to be able to use that platform to hopefully change people’s opinion of things.

Me: Dale Earnhardt Jr. mentioned in his blog that you would be performing at his charity concert and this is surprising to a lot of people so what can fans expect, that are going to the event on October 12, what can they expect from you?

Petty: Not much! (laughs) I tell ya what; Dale loves music and has always been into music, when he opened Whisky River that was a big deal. He’s a big Gary Allan fan and I’m a big Gary Allan fan. But I think what happened was we kept talking about trying to put together a group with myself, and Dale, and Tony Stewart — he can play the bass. We were going to get probably Elliott Sadler to do some stuff and look for a drummer and try to put together a group. But I think I was the only one they could talk into making a total fool of themselves and going up there and doing it.

Ya know, I don’t know. Here’s the deal, I will tell you this I’m not going to butcher anybody else’s songs, I’ll do my own songs. And then I’ll leave and you’ll never hear from me again and that’ll be the end of it. But hopefully for Dale’s foundation and for what he’s done for [Victory Junction Gang] Camp then this will be a little bit of a payback for that. I just appreciate him letting me try it.