Richard Petty

[Ford 222]

We have a TREASURE in our midst. He is still with us. A link to a time some call the golden era or whatever you want to call it and it seems we’ve forgotten him. When he is gone, it’s like a WW2 vet that passes away. If you get the opportunity to see him at the track, relish it And thank him. HE is the reason NASCAR is where it is. That man has seen and done it all.

 

[LibertyU24]

I played in his golf tournament a few times and had some great one on one conversations with him. He is 100% all about racing.

 

[LibertyU24]

I played in his golf tournament a few times and had some great one on one conversations with him. He is 100% all about racing.

 

[JJ_14]

He's the GOAT for a reason. His achievements will stand the test of time, without a doubt.

 

[LibertyU24]

Speaking of old school drivers, I wish Junior Johnson had lived long enough to see Wilksboro AllStar race.

 

[28car]

I was at the spring 1992 Wilksboro race. (While there I bought a ticket to the "1 hot night" all-star race)
after the race was over, I was walking the infield road away from the track.
here come Richard Petty driving a minivan signing autographs during stops in traffic.
just ran 500 laps and was driving himself home!!!!!

 

[Greg]

I always believed Richard Petty was genuine with the time he gave his fans. Glad to say he was one my heroes when I was a boy in the 70s. He won the most races and the records are incredible.

But there was so more he was the face of Nascar, and he always kept it classy in a time when the rest of the world only saw Nascar drivers as moonshiners and just a notch above being inbred.
Petty always greeted the public with a smile, I remember one writer who wrote about Pettys "Pepsodent smile" back in the day.

They would say that Petty would stay longer than anyone else signing autographs. He was called the King but he just seemed like a common man in terms being freindy and approachable to the fans. The books can accurately record the wins but Pettys biggest contribution to Nascar and racing cannot be measured.

The folliwing story from Robin Pemberton describes Petty the way I remember him as a boy.

www.nascar.com/en_us/new posyefs-media/articles/2014/8/9/vp-of-competition-robin-pemberton-richard-petty-upstate-new-york.html

(snipped)...
It all began when Pemberton was a 12-year-old busboy at his parents' restaurant outside Saratoga Springs, New York and made fast friends with a famous diner who was in town to race big-time stock cars at the local short track.

It's something Pemberton remembers fondly as he spends time this weekend back in his native Upstate New York for Sunday's Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen International.

"I don't think a lot of people know how much racing actually takes place in all of New York, and those stock cars of that day -- the Sprint Cup series of the '60s and '70s -- were really alien to us because everything else around there was modified dirt cars,'' Pemberton recalled of the early 1970s when NASCAR's big leagues made two trips in 1970 and 1971 to the half-mile Albany Saratoga Speedway -- a few miles from Pemberton's hometown, Malta, New York. Both races were won by The King.

"Richard Petty used to stay at the motel across the street from our family's restaurant, and he'd have his car at the speed shop by the gas station up the road.

"A bunch of us kids would ride up on our bicycles and watch them working on their cars, and I remember Richard was just sitting there in a director's chair outside and we just rolled up there and started talking to him.

"He let us climb up on the doors and peek in the car, and I was like, 'Man, there are no door handles on it.' I remember him saying, 'Well, guess I got too close to the wall and knocked the door handles off.' We didn't know any better.

"We spent hours, I mean hours, with him and he just never quit talking, and I still have a postcard he signed to me when he had the Plymouth Superbird,'' Pemberton recalled.....

 

[MRM]

With the news that Cale Yarborough isn't doing well, it makes it even more special that Richard is still with us and still active.