Richard Petty: NASCAR’s Early Days, 200 Victories, and a Family Built on Racing

30:10You just went out and run. And if you finish the race, you're going to finish pretty good. And then as time progressed, the racing got closer to people racing each other. Now it's all sprint racing. People don't have trouble with the wheels falling off the car or the brakes not working, motor blowing up. It's just a sprint race all the way. So it just took, you know, 65 years to get where we're at. For how long do you think you guys were racing cars that you literally normally drove on the street? You know, I started in 58, I guess, and it was still a pretty stock car. We've got one here somewhere.

30:49It's modified stock, okay? You started with a stock body, stock chassis, a stock motor. Again, we'd build up the wheels and the hubs and stuff, brakes and stuff to make it. And then just it went from like 1960, then from 60 to 70, they kind of turned into half race cars. We still used a stock body, but everything underneath the car and the motor and everything was different. And then in the 80s, we changed the bodies because the cars were coming through with real short hoods, six cylinder engines, front wheel drive. So NASCAR said, we can't have this. So they made a NASCAR body and NASCAR chassis so that they could have a V8 engine up front and wheels drive from the rear like a regular car is supposed to.

31:45So all that stuff has changed. And now they're looking, they went to safety so much like five or six years ago that they got away from a stock looking body. And in the last couple of years, they said, okay, we've got the safety down a little bit better. We're still working on that. But then we're trying to make the bodies so that the cars look like a Ford or a Chevrolet or a Toyota so that they're back to. See, this all started as stock car racing. Now it's turned into cup racing. It's built around a stock car, but nobody's called it stock car racing for a long time. when uh i mean today the professional drivers of multiple cars a team of people back when you were first starting to race what happened if you crashed the car you were racing you crashed the car you took it home you worked on it and fixed the thing so you was real real careful not to tear up no more than you had to but again we had one race car and you the driver most of the time took pretty good care of the thing as much as they could because if we didn't finish the race you didn't get paid and so and if you tore it up you didn't have enough money to fix it for the next week so so it was it was just a survival to begin with uh well it still is as far as that's concerned but it's a survival uh occupation you got to survive you got to be there when it's all over in order to get a good paycheck i thought it was interesting you wrote in your book that but driving or racing was your hobby.

33:30Working on cars was actually your job. See, that's when basically when I quit driving, retired or whatever in 92. The deal was after that time, like I said, you worked six days a week or seven days, whatever it was. You made appearances for sponsors. You worked on the car. you drove the car the truck to the racetrack helped unload it you done all this stuff and when you got in the car it was the only time that I felt like I had a little bit of control of my destiny even at home with your wife and kids there's so much going on you don't control you think you control and stuff but you don't control a whole lot When I was in that car, I could run fast.

34:23I could stop. I could go. I could do something basically by myself, me and the vehicle. And so it was just a hobby deal. I really, really enjoyed driving a race car, whether you won or not. And naturally, you tried to win. But the big deal was if there's a car in front of you, let's pass him. Even if you're 15 laps behind, he's 20 laps or he's leading the race, don't make it ever. You got it. That was a challenge. You had to challenge every lap to do a little bit better than what you'd done the lap before. So again, it was just, I just led to drive a race car. Well, and as you said, the last laps where you make the money anyways.

35:03That's when it's all about. But you got to be smart enough or good enough or lucky enough to be in a position to do the last part of the race as far as payday. I mean, going out and leading the race and stuff, no big deal. So, you know, it looks good on TV or to your fans or you feel good about it, but you don't pay anything. It pays when you see that checker flag. When you were a kid, your dad was just starting to really get good at racing, and he lost the race. And you make some comment to him about, well, you still did pretty good, Dad. That wasn't good enough. How did his response to you impact you?

35:45You know, he knew he had to win to make a living and do what the deal was. And he was kind of a hard-nosed deal. On that deal, he just believed in winning the deal. I know about 1966, 67, we had what's called a northern tour. and we'd go up north after Daytona and run Trenton and Isle of New York and two or three places up there and run four races. And so the last race we run was in Isle of New York on Saturday night. And so we jumped in the truck and come Taryn home. We got home probably 11, 30, 12 o 'clock. My dad was eating dinner anyway. So we pull in, and, I mean, we're pretty excited. We had four races.

36:46We won three of them in one second in the other one. So we thought we'd had a good day. He comes out on the back porch eating a piece of chicken. He said, what happened? I said, what do you mean what happened? Why did you run second? He didn't say you've done great by winning three. He wanted to know why he didn't win. I said, but that was just his makeup, and that's what we lived with. How did you handle that? You just went along with it. because from the time I was this big until I'm big, this big, same thing. So you just learn to live with the circumstances. Did that start to become your mindset too?

37:19Probably. I've got a lot of that stubbornness in me, I think, that that's just me. What you see is what you get. And how it got there, I don't know, and I just accept it going down the road. Describe what it was like being in the driver's seat of a race car in your first professional race. You know, I guess I'd been going to race since so long. And we'd go to Dale Inman, my crew chief for all those years, and another boy and myself take the race car to Columbia, South Carolina. They'd run a convertible race. And so we'd pull in and unload just like we always did. The only thing that I'd done different was I got in the car.

38:05First time I'd ever been in a race car. I'd been in a race car when the tracks were muddy and stuff. Sometimes they didn't let me go out. You know, you're in 15 mile yards because there's mud everywhere. But anyhow, as far as getting in the car, putting on a helmet, putting on a seat belt, and going out and seeing how fast you run, that's the first time. And so I go out and I run around a little bit. We need to work on it, set on it, make a change, like setting the car up like I knew what was going on. Yeah, I think we made a change. I don't know what we did. But yeah, go back out. So we run the race.

38:43And I think I qualified 13th and wound up 6th in the race because I didn't outrun anybody. Everybody had trouble and I wound up. And so coming back up the road, we just come into North Carolina digging along there. I reached over. I think I was driving a truck. Told Dale, I said, I think I'm going to like this driving. it. And that, you know, it was just, it was, it was just a natural for me. I mean, you know, it was just, it was, again, a hobby that I wanted to do and I'd done it and was, had a bunch of, a bunch of good people around me to give me a good safe car, keep me from getting hurt too bad.

39:24So Other than that, it was okay. You said racing is unlike golf in that golf, the techniques vary set, whereas racing, it's kind of an open field. So what was it like for you kind of figuring out what your technique was going to be on the racetrack? There's so many different circumstances with racing. I'm not a golfer. My dad used to golf a lot. but you know you got a ball and a deal and there's a hole there's nobody in your way they make everybody be quiet so you're you're in pretty much control left for wind blows or something but you got to figure on that when you get in a race car you got the race car with all the mechanical part you're buying driving ability and then you got 40 other cars out there that you got to beat they don't you know they don't you're not out there by yourself you're not doing your your job by yourself.

40:21You've got to watch beside you, in front of you, behind you, and change with the circumstances as the track gets slicker or weather gets colder or hotter. So there's so many facets that you just sort of have to just go with the flow. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. How important is attitude? My attitude is all, in other words, or confidence, whatever it is. If he can do it, I can do it and do it a little bit better. I can work on my car. I can get my car a little better. I can go in that corner a little bit deeper. I can get on the accelerator quicker. I can make decisions quicker.

41:04I can beat any one given person. But again, when you go at it, you're not just beating one. You've got all them other guys you've got to beat too. But most of the time, it's like every other thing. It just comes down to, it's like cream raises the top. When you get down to really end of the race, and there's just four or five people that you really got to beat. The rest of the people, you outrun them, but you don't really race with them. What makes a successful driver? Don't have an idea. Oh, come on. Don't have a clue. Okay, well, how about this then? If two drivers have the same ability, what are the differences?

41:41What's the difference maker? Okay, all of us have different personalities. All of us, as the drivers, have different personalities. They've got different scales of talent. Some guy might be concealed a little bit better than the other one, but the other one's got quicker reflexes. So there's no one given thing. is just a bunch of different facets that I see that puts into the driver part. Then from the driver's standpoint, he's got to have the equipment to be able for him to use his talent. If he's got an inferior car, then a lot of times he can't use all his talent. He's got to have a car that's capable of accepting the talent that he has.

42:37Okay? And so he has to be good enough. Sometimes the cars are better than the drivers. Sometimes the drivers are better than the cars. The deal is getting a combination of a guy when he's really, really sharp from the driving deal and the car is really, really sharp. And if you look back through the history of all the race car drivers, sort of like quarterbacks or whatever, they truck along and they get a little bit better and they have a really good year or a couple of years, and then it's kind of level out, and then they kind of start downhill. And it comes on slow, so a lot of times you don't see the trend.

43:18But you get people coming along, and most of the time a really good driver maybe had two or three really good years. He might have a good year coming in, a good year going out, but really the highlight of his career, even if he wins, say, like Jimmy Johnson won five championships. Okay, did he win it going in or did he win it going out? You know what I mean? It took him a while to win one, and he hadn't won one in a while. So all that just came together with him and his equipment and his crew. And I guess I go a lot with fate. My dad always told me, he said, you can work hard, you can overcome anything in the world except fate.

44:05You have no control over fate. So when things come along, you take advantage of those and call it fate. I was lucky enough to be in the right place to win this race with the right people. So you didn't have anything to do with it. You'd done all you could do. And then fate come in and said, okay, it's your turn. And that's the way we look at it. And it's interesting you bring that up because obviously age plays a big part in that in terms of, you know, an athlete might have more and more experience as they get older, but at some point their body just won't allow them to do the things they once did.

44:41I think your best year, after the 10 years after your best year, you won something like 105 races. And to put this into context, the 200 races you won is almost double the driver who's won the next most races. So I wonder, though, what's it like or what was it like for you as a driver to one day realize you're never going to be as good as you were yesterday? It's hard to take, OK? I mean, I'll tell you, this is the way I see athletes. the majority of the time when an athlete retires or quits, he is the smartest, the best he's ever been. Okay? Because he's got more experience and all that. The deal with the athletes, and I'm using myself sort of as an example too, but I watch other people, is that when that athlete started golfing, started driving a race car, playing quarterback.

45:46He got on blinders. All he could see was this is my job. This is what I want to do. Bam, bam, bam. So he concentrated 24 hours a day. Okay. Then the first thing you know, he gets married. Then he gets kids. And then he gets to thinking, I can't always do this. I better get me an investment deal. I need to do this, this. And then the first thing you know, you get to spend 10 hours a day on your job. And then as you get business stuff, first thing you know, your concentration is on your job just when you're at your job. It ain't on 24 hours a day. So you lose your focus, but you're still the smartest, the best you've ever been just because of the experience.

46:34How did you reconcile that for you personally with the desire to still be as great as you could be? at your job? You know, I guess I knew that's the way the game was played. That's the way the game was laid out. I just do the best I can to get the most out of it for me and my family. And, yeah, you know, we won our 200th race in 84. And if you look at our record and look at the way it was going, we was winning and it was already sort of working our way downhill. even though he was still winning races and stuff like that. And then after that, he just, I told him a lot of times, I thank the good Lord to give me 25 years of good luck, and I try to stretch it to 30.

47:25The injuries, the tolerance you had for pain must have been extraordinary, but how do you view physical pain? the strongest thing a person has is his mind so if he uses mind over matter i'm a big believer in you know i can sit here and make my finger hurt just by my mind or i can make it not hurt okay and it's just it's a mind it's a mindset deal but one of the mindset deals were that when we was coming along, we had Petty Enterprise this year, had a race car, had a bunch of people working for us. I was responsible for that race car and those people to get paid, make a living. No matter how bad you was hurt, your job was to get in that race car and do the best you could with it.

48:20So between the obligations you had to you and your family and the people that you worked with, in your mind, you just wouldn't have done it. You didn't think anything about it. If you had a broke leg, you got in the car. If your ribs were broke, you got in the car. If your neck was broke, you got in the car. You know, shoulder broke, they taped the thing up and put you in the car and you went. And you never thought about not doing it because that was your job. And you wouldn't even take pain or numbing medication. I mean, you can go to the dentist for a cavity and have them drilling on your mouth and you aren't taking any medication.

48:53So you do take it to an extreme. But how about... That's just teaching my mind, okay? And how do you teach? I mean, have you always been able to do that? Yeah, I guess for some reason. I don't know. Again, I'm a real strong believer in mind over matter, and that's what it all is. So from that standpoint, I guess I learned from an early age. And when you've got an obligation to do, you haven't got time to be sick or you haven't got time to hurt. You've got to go do the job. The worst rib injury you ever drove with would be what? Well, we just want to tear all your ribs loose when the whole thing comes loose.

49:37There's nothing that I've ever had hurt me as much as having broke ribs because if you breathe, they hurt. If you laugh, they kill you. And you'll be sitting here, and they hurt a little bit, and every time you move, they hurt more. and I get to me that that's the worst pain I've ever had trying to wait for him to get healed back up or kind of hook up. How was it to drive with? It was tough I I broke them so many times we finally just took a piece of aluminum and went from here around to here and just bent the thing just where it fit the ribs and then we put foam rubber on the inside of that and then when I get in the car they put that on and then just tape the thing up so that when went in the corner you had something in the seat to keep you from falling out of the seat and so what happened when you did that it spread it over a big pure it spread it from the top of your arm bottom of your arm to your hip then it didn't really push on your ribs okay so you was able to do that without suffering too much.

50:55It did lessen some of the pain as best it could. Again, you know, you might take a goodies or a shot of Novocaine, but they wouldn't last very long, so you just had to go on. Explain why you had half of your stomach removed. Well, I had ulcers, okay. And I think that probably started at a younger age when I first started racing around or running around working on race cars, we never, in our racing business, it was a 24-hour business. You didn't go to work at 8 o 'clock of the morning, quit at 12 and eat dinner, quit at 6 and eat supper, and then go home. It didn't work that way. You went and had a job to do, and you worked that.

51:41And when we go on a trip, if we went from here to California, the only time we stopped was when the car ran out of gas. or the truck running out of gas, and you'd stop. And if there was a place to eat, you'd eat. And if they didn't, you'd grab a Coke and a pack of nabs and go on down the road. So we never did anything regular. And by being up 24 hours a day or 36 hours a day or whatever it was, you just went and done it, and you didn't really take care of eating the right stuff or whatever. Whatever it was, you grabbed it and kneed it and went on down to it. And so it finally just, that plus probably the tension, you know, the grind and just being gone and worrying about stuff or whatever, just finally just eat up high from my stomach.

52:38So I finally had to take it out. Explain the situation in which you broke your neck. We was Pocono, Pennsylvania in 1980, I think, somewhere right along there. I'm going in the turn and the wheel breaks and I run up on the guard rail and catch fence and turn the car over and just tear it all to pieces. And Dale Inman, the crew chief, he runs down there and wants to know what's going on. I said, I think I broke my neck, but don't know. Okay, so they take me over to... You said it casually like that? You know, my neck's hurting. I think I broke it. I said, okay. So they laid me down. They took me to the little hospital down somewhere there in Pennsylvania.

53:21And so I'm laying there, and my wife's there, and we're sort of waiting on the doctor to come in. He comes in with his X-ray, and he's looking at the lights and looking at it, and he said, when did you have your neck broke before? I said, I didn't know I had it broke before. And he showed the X-ray where it moved over about an eighth of an inch, one of the vertebrates or something that had a crack in it and had calcium around it. And I said, well, probably broke it sometime when I broke something else and it hurt worse. See, your body can only hurt one place at a time. So, you know, then we went from there to Talladega the next week and had a doctor up there in Pennsylvania.

54:05He made me a special brace for the neck. And so we went down. I think we qualified the car and started the race, and then I got out of the car and put another boy in it. But that's what we're doing. How dangerous was racing? Oh, God, I ain't going to tell you how dangerous it was. If anything had happened, it would probably fell off. But, again, that was my assignment, and that was what I was supposed to do. And NASCAR is a little bit stronger on their safety deals than what they used to be. They wouldn't even let you at the racetrack if you've got a broke neck now. But, I mean, you know, we drove with concussions.

54:43How many concussions do you think you've had? You know, there's no telling. See, every time you hit your head, you've got some kind of concussion. So you can imagine with all the stuff we had, you probably had eight or ten that was pretty strong deals. We had one in Daytona one year, was running a high rock race, coming off second corner, a bunch of people crashed. And so when we do that, then they put you in the ambulance and they take you and check you all out. And so I get in the ambulance, or so they tell me, I get in the ambulance with two or three other guys. We're sitting there. They said, I asked them, did anybody get hurt in a wreck?

55:28And they said, no, nobody got hurt. So didn't think nothing about it. I go to the infirmary and lay there, and about a half hour after that, I wake up. I don't remember any of that stuff. I was, but I was talking, I was talking to them and everybody thought everything was okay, but it rung my bell so much that I was just unconsciously conscious. I don't know what you'd say. And then all of a sudden you woke up and you know, that was a big deal. And then they took me to the hospital, kept me overnight because they knew I had a, Didn't know how bad the concussion was. And then they, I think it was on a Friday, and we were in the race on Sunday.

56:12And they wasn't wanting to let me out of the hospital because they didn't know how bad it was. And definitely wasn't wanting me in a race car, but, you know, you just go do it, and you got back in the race car, and we led the race until we blowed the tires. So it was just one of those deals that, again, we just done what you had to do. You think you have any lasting side effects from the concussion? I told the guys, I said, probably I'm walking around now with a concussion and don't even know it. Had so many concussions. So I don't know how it'd be if you didn't have a concussion. But, yeah, you know it's got a beat on your head and slow down something.

56:52So I don't know if Alzheimer's or something like that, if I would have a start-up deal on that, I don't know. So far I can remember to get up and eat and go to bed, so I'm okay. Drag Race, Georgia, you know, you crash and the crash injures spectators, kills an eight-year-old. All these years later, how vividly do you still remember that day? You know, that was 1965. I was running Drag Race somewhere in Georgia. and we get off the line, the car breaks an A-frame or something and he goes off and kills a little kid that's alongside the track. And it took me a long time to get over that because I had a couple of kids, had three kids at the time, you know what I mean, and I wasn't that old either.

57:49It was just one of the deals that you say, why? You know, why me? Why did it all happen? But, you know, when stuff like that happens... You learn from it, but you can't live with it. You have to say, that was history. I can't go back. I can't change any of that. It is what it is. And so you learn to accept it. Then, you know, later on, I think in 1975, my wife's brother was killed in the pits at Talladega. I had a tank, and the tank blew up. I had a pressure tank, a water tank. and the deal had blown up. And then in 2000, I lost a grandson, Adam Petty, in New Hampshire. So you started out, the kid in Georgia I didn't know.

58:51Okay, but then I knew my brother-in-law. And then all of a sudden, it's my grandson. So it came closer and closer. But all of them sort of fit into a pattern of there were tragedies. We were there. We were involved. But we really didn't have anything to do with it. Again, it was a fate deal that happened. And, you know, the deal with at least without them, then we were able to get together and go back and build the Victor Junction Gang Camp for Chronicle and Sirius Leo Kids. 10 years ago or something. It's been going on. So, you know, out of tragedy for one or for a family or a few families, all the other, you know, 21 ,000, 22 ,000 kids that's come through there, it's been a blessing for them.

59:46So you look back and say, we lost one deal, but look at all the good things that come out of that. So that's how I balance a life. There was a letter that a fan wrote to you after the death of your grandson, Adam, passed away. Some lady sent a letter, and this was right after I lost my grandson. And, you know, it was kind of a deal that, you know, you question yourself. And, I mean, it really hit hard because I said, if I hadn't been in racing, then Adam probably wouldn't have been in a race car and he probably wouldn't have got killed in a race car. And the letter said, you know, don't put a question mark where God has put a period.

1:00:28And it was just like it took away the world off. I mean, I've never had that many occasions to feel relief, I guess, was what it was. It was just a deal. Hey, you're not responsible. Again, it just happened. and it just, like I say, just like took a weight off of me, and then I could go on and help with the Victory Junction Gang, do my business like I was supposed to. But for a couple of weeks there, I was pretty down. How long did it take you to get through it? Well, like I say, a couple of weeks. It was just I couldn't, I didn't eat right. I was just out of the world. And like I say, once I got that note, I said, she's right.

1:01:17This is the real world, guys. You've got to get out there and go. And then you're still not over it, okay? But it gets to be less and less of a point in your life as time progresses. And I'd imagine it helps having a great family and a strong support system. Well, you know, the family is what it's all about. You know, we just got a great-great-grandson, whatever, and they named him Adam. You know, we call him Stone because the family is hard to grow up with Adam and then call another person Adam in the same family. So we just call him, I think they named him Stonewall. We call him Stone. And he's a pity, so he'll be okay.

1:02:03How much credit do you give to your late wife for all the success that you had during your career? You know, it's a funny thing. I think we got married when she was 17. Had two kids by the time she was 19. I was 21, 22 years old. And the deal being she was young, I was young. We'd never been in that part of our life. Just growing up not knowing what you're supposed to do, what you wasn't supposed to do. And the situation wound up was she was the homebody. she took care of the house she took care of the bills she took all that kind of deal i went out and done my racing and did my job and then it was like i told people like three lives she lived a life i lived a life and we lived a life together so we were married 55 years we probably live together 25, which was okay.

1:03:09Because I'd come home, stay two or three days, and couldn't wait to get away and be away two or three days and couldn't wait to get back home. So it was a perfect situation for my situation. It might not work for anybody else, but it worked for us. I was talking to your daughter, Rebecca, about this last night, and she was saying, in a way, it was kind of tough for your mom because on one hand, she wants to be the wife and be with you on the race weekends all the time. Yet on the other hand, she knew she needed to be at home and be the mother. How difficult do you think that was for her? You know, again, we started this real young.

1:03:49And we had no guidance of what was right or wrong or what we needed to do or when we needed to do it. And we just let it develop. In other words, when the situation was this way, we're going this way or this way. I guess we was young enough to know that life was out there. We didn't understand it. And whatever was thrown at us, we just didn't take it and make the best out of it. And she done a heck of a good job with that. And you figured out what worked best for you guys. For the whole family. I read this, and this cannot be true. When you guys were going on your early dates and you were courting her, were you really picking her up in a car that didn't even have a passenger seat?

1:04:29Yes. I have. What do you mean? I had a 56 Dodge. I had it all lowered, big wheels and tires. I had a 57 Oldsmobile motor with three carburetors and no mufflers and all that. And so, you know, they come with bench seats. I got the idea I didn't want the bench seat. I went to some kind of truck or something that had a bucket seat. So I put the bucket seat in the thing. So I drove around and I took a big rug and stuff and laid, laid in the floorboard. So the floor wasn't that rough. And when I go pick her up, I take a wheel and just put a wheel over there and put a cushion on the thing. And we'd ride around and go to the drive in or go, go to the ball game or whatever.

1:05:22And she'd have to hang on because it wasn't too stable. bit. And that's the truth. We did do that. What's her reaction the first time she gets in the car and sees that? She was young and innocent and it didn't make any difference. If I'd have come with a wagon, she'd have been happy just to go out. So she didn't know any better. Did you really give her a hundred dollars for a wedding present? Yeah, that we did. We went to South Carolina, got married when she was 17. She had to be 18 in North Carolina. Anyhow, and I said, okay, I'll give you a wedding. And she had bought some pots and pans and paying$5 a month on them or some kind of deal.

1:06:07So I gave her a hundred dollars. And she went and paid off pots and pans. I said, now this is a very conservative lady. This is going to be great. So we still got some of the pots and pans, and that was 55, 56 years ago. What would you say is the most satisfying moment from your career?

1:06:35You can't, I can't come with any one given thing. I've been so fortunate over the years of different situations that when it happened, that's the greatest thing that ever happened. Then you get something else that happens, this is the greatest thing. I mean, when Kyle was born, that was the biggest thing that ever happened to me. I had a son. Then I had a daughter. Then I had another daughter. Then I had another daughter. Then I had granddaughters and grandsons. And I've won races, won big races, won championships, meet the presidents of the United States, go around the world, go to Australia, go to China.

1:07:21All those things were big things in my life, but they're just part of my life. There's no one given thing. The best thing that probably ever happened, and one of those bunch of things that make it all work, was meeting my wife and getting married, doing the thing when I did when I was young. Because when, I think we dated for a year and a half and stuff, and I told her, I said, you know, racing's number one in my life. If you work really, really hard, you might be number two. Okay. You said that to her. After 55 years, she'd become number one. That was the seed that made everything else you see work.

1:08:08But that seed had to get a good foundation, and then a big old, big old tree grew from then. The 1967 Southern 500, why might that be the most important race of your career? 67? Uh-huh. You said in your book that you thought that might be... Really, okay, you got to figure along in, up until 1959, Darlington was the biggest, the biggest race. Okay. And then Daytona came along, but it took five or six years for Daytona to outshine Darlington. And everybody's ever drove Darlington. will tell you that it's probably one of the roughest, toughest, hardest racetracks to drive and to win races. I think Pearson won eight or 10 races there.

1:09:05He just got the knack of it, had good fortune. We never won but three races, I think, there. But my dad had tried from 1949 and I'd tried and we just was always that close, but never got there. So to win a race on what I consider the toughest racetrack, it was just a big accomplishment. And I think Daytona's finally overcome Darlington. But like I say, up to that time, that was the crown jewel of NASCAR. How about the time you crashed and you thought you might get eaten by alligators? Yeah, it was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And we run the dirt track and went up the back streets and accelerator hung.

1:10:03And when I did, the thing tumbled off. They didn't have no fence so you went out in swamp. And so I was in a convertible. So I was up sitting on the seat waiting for the wrecker to come and it was up on the bank. And I said, come on down here and get my car in. He said, we ain't coming down here. I said, what do you mean? He said, there's alligators out there. So they threw the chain down and I hooked it to the roll bar and they pulled me up. But you could hear them splashing around. I said, man, I'm going to stay in the car. So it worked out. What happened where you almost got stabbed at a racetrack once?

1:10:43I guess you got into a confrontation with some driver and his crew was coming up, but your family ended up beating him up. I might have to do some research on that. Yeah, you're going to have to read your book again. So the Daytona 500, the one that took three days to determine who the actual winner was, what do you think was going on there? You know, we didn't know. Okay. We always look at conspiracy situation.

1:11:19In 1956, 57, the factors were involved. Ford, Chrysler, GM had race cars. They pulled all the race cars out. They decided that they weren't going to race anymore. And then in 1959 when they were in Daytona, then Bill France was still courting, trying to get the factories involved again. And my dad was in a Oldsmobile and the guy that they flagged was in a Ford. and we always surmised that France thought that if Ford won the race, he might get them back in racing more than Oldsmobile was never considered a hot rod per se. And anyhow, we thought about that deal. But then after everything was done and it took them to Wednesday to decide the deal, But after everything was done, and you look back at history, one of the greatest PR deals that ever came about was that if we'd have run Daytona and it had been a winner, it would have been in the newspaper on Monday.

1:12:40Tuesday, we'd have never heard tell about it. The way it was, by having the controversy, it was in there Monday, it was in there Tuesday, it was in there Wednesday, it was in there for the next week, just trying to figure it all out. So all of a sudden, Daytona became a big racing place just because of the PR they was getting on a day-to-day basis. And this isn't like today where there's all this high-tech stuff where instantly they can tell who won or the viewer at home on quick replay can see who won. And they had to go back, spend time developing a photo. They had to look at photos. And I think in France's mind, he knew my dad had won the race.

1:13:23Okay. So I don't know what his PR part was, whether it was to try to get factories back in or whether he was smart enough to realize we can milk this thing as long as we can. And that's what they did. What about your 200th victory made it so memorable for you? Well, you know, again, my career was sort of going downhill. We hadn't won but one other race that year. And so we go to Daytona on July the 4th. President's flying in. On the Air Force One, he says, gentlemen, start your engines. So we start the engines. About halfway through the race, he lands. President Reagan. President Reagan. And that's the furthest thing from my mind because we're out there racing.

1:14:18And it comes down to the end of the race, and Kel Yorba and myself are racing. And the deal is I'm not thinking about 200. I'm not thinking about anything except how do we beat Kel. And so we come down to the last lap, and I'm leading. He's running second. So I know what he's going to do. I mean, that's when cars drafted each other and they slingshot past. So I do everything I can to outwit him, which don't work. And I've got a plan. He's got a plan. And I slow him down a little bit for the last eight or ten laps. We just keep getting a little bit slower, a little bit slower, and he still stays behind me, which I know.

1:15:09Okay. we came around to get the one lap to go or the white flag there's a car down in the first corner it's way up in there he did some guy runs off the track and turning the car so then we race back to the flag whoever got back to the flag the first was the winner and so both of us then run wide open we go down the backstretch and right at the end of the backstretch he pulls out and passes me and when he does, he's running probably 10 or 15 mile an hour quicker than he's been running, so he turns the steering wheel and he's in a different groove because the car goes in faster. So I'm able to duck down beside of him and we come down to the story finish line.

1:15:56We've got black marks on both sides of the car where we're touching each other and I wind up beating him probably a couple of three feet. And so then when that's over with, they had then told us to stop on the racetrack. Instead of going to the winner's circle, stop them on the racetrack. The president was up in a press box. So we'd go up and get to talk to the president in a press box. And then when we get through there, we take pictures and do the whole deal. and then when the race was over, they took the garage area and closed it off and the drivers, their families, the crews and their families got to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken with the President of the United States on July the 4th on top of that.

1:16:48So it wound up being really a big day for us, I guess a big day for him. I always looked at it. He put us on the front page. we put him in the sports page so it was a it was a win-win for for us all the way around you remember what you guys talked about do what you remember what you guys talked about no he was just all excited he said y 'all running 200 mile iron beating on each other i mean you know he never i guess he'd never seen a race he'd heard about him and all that but when he first got there he The car is all over the racetrack. Who's leading what? Who's doing what? Because there was nothing to put it all together.

1:17:30And so they finally told him, well, this guy's first, this one's second. That guy over there is third. So he finally got the flow of it. But it was a fantastic finish at any time. But it was the 200th win for me in front of the president of the United States. So I all rolled up to one. It was just another big fake deal it was supposed to be, and it happened to us. Your last race was Jeff Gordon's first race, and he actually still has that souvenir money clip that you gave to all of the drivers who were competing in your last race. What do you think of Jeff Gordon? Jeff's done a heck of a job. You know, if you look back at NASCAR, you've got different leaders at different times bringing the sport forward.

1:18:29Okay. And, you know, to begin with, there was an era. Then I came through with an era with Pearson and Allisons and Bakers and Yarboroughs. Then it kind of shifted over to Darrell Walshup and then to Dale Earnhardt. And then it shifted to Jeff Gordon. He took it from one level to another level, and all these people took it to another level. And he's been a heck of a spokesman for the deal, being able to be a young guy. He wasn't from Carolina. He was from California or Pennsylvania or Indiana somewhere. And he was the first really young guy to come in because most of the guys that went through the process of doing NASCAR sportsmen, they were always 25, 26 years old before they got a first-class ride.

1:19:27He come in and he gets a first-class ride at 20 years old, 21 years old. And so he starts a new trend of younger people coming into the sport. And in doing that, then the face of NASCAR, he changed it from one face to another face. where I was there when it was changed from the old guard, from the original stuff, sort of into the start of the modern era. Then you had Earnhardts and Waltz come along and take it again to another level. And he's now taken it to another level. And that level now is being taken to another level with another crowd of people. And so, again, he's been a really, really big asset to be able to be as personable, to be on late night TV or early morning TV, talked about anybody to anything, about all different kinds of subjects, and still be a heck of a race car driver.

1:20:32Danica Patrick, I know your favorite topic to talk about. You know, you made the comment that the only way she could win is if nobody else was in the field. To what extent were you surprised by all the attention that that received? No, it was it was the whole deal was a PR deal. If her name had been Joe Smith. Sure. Nobody would even know she ever showed up at a race track. Right. So it was strictly, and I can't blame her, and she is competitive now. She really does try. I've got to give her all that kind of credit. But she was able to have enough talent to draw a little bit of attention, her sponsor-wise, and then they took it and made something work for her.

1:21:23She's been good for racing from the standpoint of the PR part, not from the competitive standpoint, but from the PR standpoint. She's got a lot of press, which we, as far as NASCAR Cup, probably wouldn't have got. And I mean, she almost carried IndyCar racing there for a year or two because they didn't have nothing else going. Well, we had other things going, but she come in and went right to the front on the PR deal. And as you see, it was blown out really two years ago. Last year wasn't as much. This year you've got to sort of look through the pages to find out if she's even there. Right. Could you ever envision a time where there are more female drivers in racing?

1:22:13Not really. Well, it's, you know, it's one of the deals where it's a male sport, okay? And the only way it's going to be a female sport is if it's an all-female sport. So like ladies playing basketball, and then you've got the pro guys playing basketball. They don't mingle deals. The girls are good against girls, and the boys are good against boys. OK, even in golfing or whatever.

1:22:50Women are better at some things than men. Men are better at some things than ladies. So as long as right now, I don't see it ever coming to a deal of being the leaders of our sport being ladies. I don't see it works that way. Right. Who's your favorite driver to watch? you know i don't know that i've ever had a favorite driver beside my dad you know what i mean uh what about today when you watch the race today i watch my cars okay you mean i watch eric uh and marlo and sam hornish you know i watch the other cars but two-thirds of the deal is where are they at what are they doing against each other and against to other competition.

1:23:37So as far as going and saying, okay, I'm going to watch Jeff Gordon. I'm going to watch Jimmy Johnson and pull for them or whatever. I don't do that. And I don't know that I've ever watched any one driver and just watched him for a race just to see what he's accomplished. I watch him at different segments of the race and then I make an opinion of, hey, this guy knows what he's doing or he doesn't know what he's doing. What would you say is the biggest change that you've noticed in NASCAR over your lifetime in the sport? Technology has been the biggest change. We used to work here and everything we did was off of experience and seedy of britches over a period of time.

1:24:33We've got engineers. We've got computers. NASCAR's tightened up the rules. Everything's got to be – used to we measure everything in inches. Now they're measuring thousands. And that changes the whole philosophy of what we can accomplish. And so the biggest one deal – you know, I'm like Kyle Petty. He says the only thing about racing today is what it used to be when it started, is they throw the green flag when the race starts, and they throw a checker when it's over. Everything else is different. And my biggest deal is the money come into it, technology come into it, and it's just more of a sport.

1:25:22It's more of a show now than it used to be. It used to be a race. Nobody worried about showtime, you know, being correct English or doing anything. Then it got to come with the TV and with all the publicity. We're in the show business, even though we as Richard Petty Motorsports wants to be in the racing business. Okay, so we're in the racing business putting on a show. Your daughter says she most misses the family atmosphere that existed earlier on in the sport, when there wasn't the money, when the drivers weren't flying in and out on their private jets, when they're actually, you know, everybody was together more?

1:26:03No, you know, I mean, you'd go to the race, and all the drivers, drivers' wives or girlfriends, they all parked in the infield. They didn't have a spatial place for them. And over a period of time, they finally put them in a place. then as generations change, they don't start with where the generation before started. They start where the generation before ended up. So they go each step, and they didn't have to sleep in the back of the truck to get to California. They fly in a private jet. When they get there, they got either a big motel room or they got their own bus. They don't have to associate with the general public if they don't want to.

1:26:56So, you know, that part's changed just because the sport has changed. And to me, it's grown up, and there's nothing the matter with it. It's just so much different. and the Jeff Gordon's didn't go through what I went through. I didn't go through what the Lee Pettys went through. Okay, so each generation's made it easier for the next generation. When you were starting out, you had to drive your own car to the racetrack. You had to basically fund the team yourself. What did that teach you about savings and working towards a goal? Well, you know, it was all about trying to make a living in the long run.

1:27:42And, you know, your accomplishments sort of added up to the end. The better you was doing, the more money, you know, to be able to go and get better cars, better people working on a car, get everything going better. So everything just sort of went hand in hand, and you just did it. You didn't think about it. We had the NASCAR Hall of Fame on their Facebook page ask their fans to submit questions for you. And we wanted to pick out one of the questions to read for you. And it's Ian Spence asks, if you could go back in time to the very first race, back to the future style, what would be the one thing you would tell yourself to do differently?

1:28:31You know, everybody asks, what if? What if? What if? if I'd have changed one thing back when I started, everything would be different today. Okay? So you look back and you say, I wish I'd have done this, I wish I'd have done that. But then when it all washes out, would you be in the situation you're in today? So I go back and say, I wouldn't change anything because any things I changed would have changed so much other things. I know I'm getting complicated here, but the deal of being able here to sit here and talk to you, be here at the museum, I've accomplished all this stuff with all the people that made it happen for me.

1:29:25I wouldn't want to change anything. I wouldn't want to change where I was born, who I was born with, who I married, my kids, you know, because if I changed anything, it would change a lot of people's lives, not just mine. If I could change something and it just changed my life, I might look at changing it. But other than that, no. Just leave everything alone. Fate's been real good. Let's don't challenge fate. This has been a real treat. Thank you very much. Yes, sir, buddy. Thank you, man. that was my interview with motorsports legend richard petty if you're looking to spend a little more time with the king head over to youtube.com slash graham bensinger for tours of his memorabilia and custom car shop petty's garage as always we appreciate your ratings and reviews thanks again for listening