Catchfence

WIX FILTERS ADVANCE MATERIAL FOR THE DAYTONA 500 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES RACE AT DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2010.

Dale Inman shares some of his most memorable moments from the Daytona 500.  Inman was the crew chief for all seven of Richard Petty’s wins in NASCAR’s most prestigious race and remains as a consultant with Richard Petty Motorsports.  He and Petty teamed to win 193 races and seven championships.  In 1984 Inman   captured an eighth title with driver Terry Labonte.

WIX Filters is the Official Filtration Products of Richard Petty Motorsports and is an official sponsor of the No. 43 car and driver AJ Allmendinger.

DALE INMAN, CONSULTANT, RICHARD PETTY MOTORSPORTS: “We were with Chrysler for so many years and Dodge came with the Dodge Daytona with the wing and they weren’t going to give us nothing with the Plymouth and Richard said well I’ll get a Ford.  We went with Ford and had WIX as an associate sponsor with us which was a great move.  We lucky and went out and won the first race at Riverside.  I think it hurt Chrysler so bad that they had to get Richard back the next year and they give him a wing and a Plymouth and everything so that all worked out, too.  Have to do some math on the years but now we’re back with Ford and back with WIX again.  I think the old saying is what goes around comes around but we’re back with WIX and very proud to be with ‘em.”

HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT BACK THEN TO HAVE ANY KIND OF CORPORATE HELP?  “Are you kidding me? [laughs].  We were so fortunate.  We got the help from Ford of course.  Any kind of money was help and it was important when WIX came on board.  We got lucky in 1972 with STP and had them for a long time.  You’d be surprised how little money that was but we were tickled to death to get that and of course Richard stayed with ‘em for 28 years.  These long-term associations, the ones you like and the ones you appreciate and you brag on ‘em every time you get a chance.  They are a good company and we’re glad that they love racing.”

HOW MANY YEARS HAVE YOU BEEN COMING TO DAYTONA?  “Well I was in Daytona in 1958, the last race that they had on the beach and that was before Richard drove.  We came down here with his Dad.  We had a modified on Friday, a convertible on Saturday and a hard top on Sunday.  The people that never seen a race on the beach, I mean they really missed something and of course we came here the first race in 1959 with Lee.  Golly, he’d already been in his 50s you know and won the race, the first race. The 500-mile here at Daytona in ’59 run I think caution-free.  It’s just a lot of great memories down here, you know what I mean.”

DOES ANY DAYTONA 500 STANDOUT FROM ALL THE REST?  “Well the one that really stands out probably the most I think was probably 1981 when we went to the downsized cars and [Bobby] Allison slipped that Le Mans Pontiac in on us, which was the cream of the crop.  We were going to have a decent finish and everything.  We was running the Buick and he was running the Le Mans and it run fast and handled good and everything and of course our car handled good, too.  It just wasn’t quite as fast.  There were five or six cars that stayed together all day and Bobby led ‘em and it came down to where they all came in on the last stop and changed tires and we put a little gas in and beat ‘em to the line.  That was big.  And then of course the one that hurts real bad is when him and [David] Pearson were coming to the checkered [1976 Daytona 500] and they wrecked and our car stalled about 50 years from the start-finish line and the radiator is in the fan and we couldn’t get it fired and that one hurt big.  There’s been some great memories here, even with Lee.  He won the first race ever run here.”

IN THE 1981 RACE YOU CHOSE TO GET GAS ONLY ON THE FINAL STOP.  HOW DIFFICULT WAS THAT DECISION?  “Well you know it was one of those deals where our car was driving pretty good and it was running decent.  You might not believe this but somewhere during about halfway through the race I said Richard, new tires ain’t helping us none.  They’re not wearing any, we’re still running good on old tires.  I said just bare with me on what I might do at the end ‘cause you’re figuring your pit stops all along and everything.  And sure enough when he come for his last stop, the five cars that I was talking about, Bobby Allison, I think Earnhardt, Ricky Rudd, I don’t know who the others were; I’ll have to look at my book.  I waited and brought him in last and when he come down pit road I said we’re going to gas only.  He said ‘We’re going to win this race’ and of course we figured it pretty close ‘cause coming into the tri-oval he run out of gas coming to the checkered and he didn’t tell us that for a while.  That was a big race for me.”

DO YOU EVER LOOK OVER AT THE WOOD BROTHERS AND THINK THAT IT DOESN’T SEEM LIKE YOU’VE BEEN COMING HERE FOR SO LONG?  “You look at my gray hair and everything and it’s been that long for sure [smiles].  Talking about Richard and Pearson, of course they had other drivers other than Pearson, but Richard and Pearson ran second and first to each other 60-some times and I think David might have won one or two races more than Richard.  If David hadn’t have been there Richard would have had like 30-some more races, you understand what I’m saying.  That’s just part of the math that we can’t control.  But racing with them has been great over the years.”

RICHARD PETTY AND DAVID PEARSON RACED EACH OTHER VERY HARD BUT CLEANLY AND WITH RESPECT.  “They did and of course you’ve got to take our hat off to Bobby Allison.  We had some heckacious battles with him over the years, you know what I mean, and sometimes they continued after the race.  That one with Pearson was the closest thing that happened that we could have really been mad at each other but we got over that real quick too because it ain’t nothing to sneeze at to run second at Daytona.  Richard has been real fortunate to win seven races down here and that’s going to be hard to beat.”

Since 1939, WIX® Filters, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, has been an innovator in filtration products. WIX designs, manufactures and distributes products for automotive, diesel, agricultural, industrial and specialty filter markets. Its product line includes oil, air, cabin interior, fuel, coolant, transmission and hydraulic filters for automobiles, trucks and off-road equipment. WIX, a member of the Affinia family of brands, is the number one filter in NASCAR and an exclusive NASCAR Performance Product. Its NASCAR relationship also includes the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award, which recognizes the drivers leading the most laps in each race. For more information, visit www.wixfilters.com.

Affinia Group Inc. is an innovative global leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and marketing of industrial grade products and services, including extensive offerings of aftermarket parts for automotive and heavy-duty vehicles. With more than $2 billion in annual revenue, Affinia has operations in North and South America, Europe, Asia and India. For more information, visit www.affiniagroup.com.

*Affinia Group Inc.’s affiliated companies include Brake Parts Inc. WIX Filtration Corp LLC, Affinia Products  Corp LLC and other high quality manufacturers of the Affinia family of brands.

- Camp & Associates, Inc., for WIX Filters, Press Release