Richard Petty on racing with a broken neck | Forward Progress

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0:38Which makes you wonder, what would a caveman think of Jägermeister? Well, if you served it warm, he'd probably throw it in your face, say, Oonga Boonga, and storm off. And nobody wants that. So drink it cold or not at all. Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister liqueur, 35 % alcohol by volume. Imported by Masked Jägermeister, U.S., White Plains, New York. As we wrap up the week, we're bringing you one of the many positive messages from our past interviews. Each Thursday, we're sharing stories of our most watched athletes, celebrities and leaders. We hope these problem solving narratives inspire you to tackle obstacles in your own life.

1:13This week, Richard Petty.

1:20The 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. And it's just a mindset deal. no matter how bad you was hurt your job was to get in that race car and do the best you could with it so between the obligations you had to you and your family and the people that you worked with in your mind you just went and 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 the car if your neck was broke you got in the car you know shoulder broke they taped the thing thing up and put you in the and you win.

2:08And you never thought about not doing it because that was your job. The worst rib injury you ever drove with would be what? Well, we just want to tear all your ribs loose and when the whole thing comes loose. There'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 key 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 them to get healed back up or kind of hook up. How was it to drive with? It was tough.

2:56I 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 I 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 crew it spread it from the top of your arm bottom your arm to your hip then it didn't really push on your ribs okay so you was able to do that without without suffering too much it lessened some of the pain is yeah Yeah, again, you know, might take a goodies or a shot of Novocaine, but they wouldn't last very long, so you just had to go on.

3:53Explain the situation in which you broke your neck. We was Pocono, Pennsylvania in 1980, I think, somewhere right along there. I'm going in a turn and the wheel breaks, and I run up on a guardrail and catch fence and turn the car over. And just tear it all pieces and deal in 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 just said you know my neck's hurt. I think I broke it. It's okay. So they lay me down They took me to the little hospital down somewhere there in Pennsylvania and 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, he said, when did you have your neck broke before?

4:46I 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, 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. He made me a special brace for the neck. And so we went down and I think we qualified the car and started the race, and then I got out of the car and put another boy in it.

5:27But that's what we did. How many concussions do you think you've had? You know, there's no telling. See, every time you hit your head, you 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. Do you think you have any lasting side effects from the concussions? I told the guys, I said, probably I'm walking around now with a concussion and don't even know it. I had so many concussions, so I don't know how it would be if you didn't have a concussion. But, yeah, you know it's got a beat on your head and slow down something.

6:07So I don't know if Alzheimer's or something like that, if I would have a startup 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. That's it for now. But if you're hungry for more In-Depth with Graham Bensinger interviews, head over to youtube.com slash Graham Bensinger. You can dive into our deep library, which includes more than 2 ,000 clips spanning 12 plus years. Thanks again for listening.

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