It’s a Match by Royal Decree

If racing heritage means anything, pairing an Andretti with a Petty--the King himself--should just about guarantee winning results on the race track.

John Andretti thinks so. So does the King.

No one, not even his son, Kyle, calls Richard Petty anything but “King.”

“The King wants to make this work,” Andretti said of the STP Pontiac team of which he is the driver and Richard is the owner. “I have a feeling that it will. I know the way I feel, unless the King moves his shop or locks it up and has guards all around it, I plan on being with him a long time.”

Andretti’s first official outing in the red and blue No. 43 made famous by Petty’s long reign as King of Winston Cup racing will be in Sunday’s Daytona 500. First, he must drive Thursday in a 125-mile qualifying race to determine his starting position in the 500.

“My whole focus is on Daytona. I won on this track last July [in the Pepsi 400] driving for another legend, Cale Yarborough, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do it again for the King, is there?,” Andretti said after posting the fifth-fastest speed in last Saturday’s time trials.

Andretti replaced Bobby Hamilton, who moved to the Morgan-McClure racing team.

“Any time you put a driver in a new situation, they ask, ‘Can he still win races?’ I think I answered that. And Bobby [Hamilton] showed the King’s team was a winner when he won at Rockingham and finished last year with three top-10 finishes.”

Andretti is one of five drivers who could collect a $1-million bonus by winning the 500 as part of the Winston No Bull 5 program, but he says that is immaterial to the team’s preparation.

“We’re starting at Daytona, and if it was $25 to win the race, it’s still the Daytona 500. It doesn’t matter how much money is on the line. The money doesn’t change your mind on how you drive.

“The way I feel about it, if they said on the white-flag lap that all prize money had been canceled, it wouldn’t matter. Winning is what’s more important.”

Andretti, nephew of Mario and cousin of Michael, has been a winner at every stage--Indy cars, sprint cars, midgets, endurance sports cars and even top fuel dragsters.

Petty won 200 stock car races, almost twice as many as anyone else. How do these two personalities mesh?

On the surface, very well. Both are quick with a quip, both have an an abundant sense of humor and both are determined competitors.

“We needed someone who was hungry to win and capable of winning, and I think John is both,” Petty said while watching the crew put the finishing touches on the Pontiac. “When he was with us before, even when he was with them other cats, John was too anxious. In the three years he was gone from us, he matured a lot. He found out you don’t have to lead every lap to be there at the finish.”

In 1994, Andretti was a midseason replacement for Wally Dallenbach in Petty’s second year as strictly an owner. He drove the last 11 races of the year.

“I feel in a lot of ways I never left,” Andretti said. “It was the end of the season when I left the last time. It kind of feels like we were just off for three years, like I went on a field trip, came back, and now we have to go to work again.”

Petty Enterprises had not won a race in 10 years when Andretti arrived in 1994 and he didn’t win either, but crew chief Robbie Loomis says that things turned around for Petty Enterprises the day Andretti qualified the car second for a race at Michigan. It was the first time the car started on the front row since Petty retired from driving.

After Andretti departed, Hamilton took over and won two races in three years for Petty.

Andretti, who left for what he thought were greener pastures with the Kranefuss-Haas team, traded places with Jeremy Mayfield in mid-1996 to join Yarborough’s team. When it appeared that Yarborough was going to be without a sponsor this year, Andretti jumped at an offer to rejoin Petty.

“It was kind of like ’94 over again. Petty needed a driver, I needed a drive.”

One trait that endears Petty to his drivers is that he’s not meddlesome.

“The King hires good people to do the job, then steps back and lets them do their thing,” Andretti said. “He’s smart enough to know how tough it is to have someone tell you you’re supposed to win races. He knows I know that, and I know he knows it.

“Never, ever, has he ever told me how to drive a race car. If I ask for advice, however, he’s right there to help me. Cale was the same way. What you heard from both of them was, ‘What can we do for you?’ As a driver, I can’t ask for any more than that.”

Although Kyle Petty, in the No. 44 Hot Wheels Pontiac, is not officially a teammate, he and Andretti share lessons learned in testing and practice.

“We’re two different teams, we work out of different shops, but the King looks over both of us.”

Andretti headquarters are at the Petty family compound in Level Cross, N.C.; Kyle’s shop is in Concord, N.C.

If there is any place where the Petty-Andretti plans could unravel, it might be over Andretti’s desire to drive in the Indianapolis 500--on the same day as the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.

“The King and I will sit down after the Daytona race and talk about it,” Andretti said. “It’s probably not something he’s wild about, but I think if he sees how I can do it without hurting the team, it’ll be OK. It could work easy, unless of course, we had bad weather, like last year.”

Andretti had the logistics planned last year, and had Yarborough’s blessing, but when rain interfered with his trips back and forth for qualifying, it made the Indy-to-Charlotte daily double impossible.

“I haven’t done anything about it yet, and I won’t until the King says go for it, but I will have to find a ride with an IRL team. I don’t think that will be a problem, there seems to be a lot of cars this year.”

If he goes. Andretti probably will drive for another legend, A.J. Foyt. After all, Foyt is his godfather.

“I think he’ll see things my way, the way he did when I got a chance to drive another car in the Bud Shootout,” Andretti said of Petty.

Andretti had qualified by winning the pole at Talladega but could not drive one of Petty’s team cars because Petty refuses to place a beer company decal on his car. No decal, no race, but Petty gave Andretti permission to drive Rick Hendrick’s Budweiser-sponsored car in the race.

Andretti will be doing double duty this weekend, but not on the same day. He will drive in his first Busch Grand National race.

“I decided I wanted to own a team, so Don Laird and I bought a car for the Busch Grand National series, but when we didn’t have a driver signed up in time, I decided to drive at Daytona.

“Besides, it helps to get in as many laps as possible at Daytona to learn the track before the 500. A lot of the Winston Cup drivers will be in the Busch race too.”

Among them are Dale Jarrett, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin, Jimmy Spencer and Ken Schrader.

“I’m only in it for one race. Next week, at Rockingham [N.C.], Mike Stefanik will be in the Big A Auto Parts Pontiac, and he’ll be with us all season.”

Stefanik gained a measure of notoriety last year when he became only the second driver to win two NASCAR championships in the same season when he won the Featherlite Modified Tour and the Busch North series.

Richard Petty is the only other double champion.