The heat isn't being felt just at the race track these days. Even with temperatures expected to be in the 90s this weekend in Darlington, things are getting warmer at Richard Petty Motorsports. After placing three of its drivers in the top 10 in the Daytona 500, it has only one driver in the top 20 in points (Kasey Kahne at 17th)
Kahne has become outspoken lately about the organization's struggles and how he'd like to have the new Dodge engine to use. Instead, RPM has been going through its inventory of older engines (updating it as it goes) but has not yet used the new Dodge engine that has helped Kurt Busch climb to second in the points.
"Certainly, there's a lot of heat on us from various quarters for (changing to the new engine),'' says Mark McArdle, director of competition at Richard Petty Motorsports. "Sometimes you do things for the right reasons and sometimes you do it because you're under pressure.''
Asked about how much pressure Dodge is putting on the team to use the new engine and how much Dodge can help in the transition, McArdle said: "That's a little tough considering they're bankrupt, don't you think? They're going to do everything they possibly can. The pressure, it comes from a lot of different quarters, certainly not just from Dodge and we're in the process of making sure that we make the best decisions that we can so that we get out there and improve our performance by the virture of having done the exercise. We're not committing to any specific race car or event,. We're committed to getting the R6 (new engine) out there as soon as we possibly can and evaluating whether it is, in part at least, a solution to the lack of performace we've have over the last three or four weeks.''
So, how good is the new engine? For all the changes that Penske Racing made going into this season (personnel, aero, setups horsepower and such), this is what Busch says about the new engine: "Getting it out on the race track was the smartest thing I think we could have done at the end of last year. The biggest percentage (in contributing to the turnaround) I would have to say is the engine department helping us out.''
But there are other concerns with Richard Petty Motorsports. Kahne told The Charlotte Observer that one of the reasons he's heard why the team hasn't gone to the new engine yet is a possible move to Toyota next year.
I asked McArdle about that and the team's plans: "I think that the fact we've been living in a very doubtful universe with regard to Chrysler's financial liability for a while here certainly has made everyone think about alternatives but we're a Dodge team. We're going to be a Dodge team for the remainder of 2009 and that's about all I can tell you.''
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