Team Petty Enterprises Car/Make No. 45/Dodge Sponsor Georgia Pacific Crew Chief Greg Steadman
STATS	2003	CAREER
Rank	37	5*
Wins	0	8
Top 5	0	51
Top 10	0	168
DNFs	6	156
Top Finish	11 (Talladega)	1
*Indicates best career points finish

2003 recap
The good: Petty's best performances of the season were his first two superspeedway events, where he finished 13th in the Daytona 500 and 11th in the first Talladega race, the Aaron's 499. In a season where his average finish was 30th, even a 23rd-place effort at the next Daytona race, the Pepsi 400, had to be appreciated. That's all about all the good -- and even that's not much -- that came out of this season. Heck, he didn't even get a chance to put forth another strong superspeedway showing in the second Talladega event, for which he failed to qualify.

The bad: This, there was a lot of. And has been a lot of for some time, now. Petty, who failed to notch a victory, top-five or top-10 throughout the year, has had zero wins, zero top-fives and just two top-10s in the last four seasons. His racing stable is in just as bad a shape. After a couple seasons of touting growth and improvement, asking for patience and hope, Petty fired driver John Andretti from the team. Now, there's no telling how many times a three-car showing by Petty will make a race (mostly because of the team's propensity for failing to qualify, but also because Christian Fittipaldi will likely go back to an ARCA/Busch/Cup schedule for one more year and Jeff Green may or may not have the full funding in place to try a full schedule in the 43 car).

Key stat: 35. That's how many more points Petty accumulated compared to Andretti last season, although Andretti did notch a top-10 and made four fewer starts than did Petty.

2004 outlook
What needs to be done: A lot. All of the progress and optimism is hard to sell at this point. Sponsorship dollars are stretched and consistency is hard to find with so much turnover. Green is a steady racer, but he will need to be better than his equipment if he wants to compete for a top-15 finish like he did for Richard Childress Racing in 2002. Meanwhile, the only consistency Petty has provided in the 45 is consistent finishes of 25th or worse.

Guarantee: One of the Petty cars will fail to qualify for a race this season.

Prediction: Petty will probably improve on his 37th-place finish, but cracking the top 20 isn't likely at all.

Did you know: Petty was recruited out of high school to play quarterback for several colleges (and some colleges showed interest in his baseball talents, too).

Your take
Can Petty shake the massive funk he and his stable has been in the last four or five years? Or are this stable's best days behind it -- way behind it? Share your thoughts on Petty's prospects for 2004.