Richard Lee Petty (born July 2, 1937), nicknamed "the King", is an American former stock car racing driver who competed from 1958 to 1992 in the former NASCAR Grand National and Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most notably driving the No. 43 Plymouth/Pontiac for Petty Enterprises. He is one of the members of the Petty racing family. He was the first driver to win the Cup Series championship seven times (a record now tied with Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson), while also winning a record 200 races during his career. This included winning the Daytona 500 a record seven times and winning a record 27 races in one season (1967). Petty is widely regarded as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history.
Petty was inducted into the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2010. He is also statistically the most accomplished driver in the history of NASCAR, having racked up most wins (two-hundred), most poles (123), tied for most championships (seven), most wins in a season (27), most Daytona 500 wins (seven), most consecutive wins (ten) and most starts (1,185).
He earns broad respect in motorsport where beyond driving, he remains very active as both a team ambassador (Legacy Motor Club) in the Cup Series and owner of Petty's Garage (a car restoration and modification shop) in Level Cross, North Carolina. During his 35-year career, Petty collected a record number of poles (123) and over seven-hundred top-ten finishes in a record 1,184 starts, including 513 consecutive starts from 1971 to 1989. Petty was the first driver to win in his 500th race start, being joined by Matt Kenseth in 2013.
The Richard Petty Museum was formerly in nearby Randleman, North Carolina, but moved back to its original location in Level Cross in March 2014. Petty has also voiced a role in Disney/Pixar's animated films Cars and Cars 3, playing Strip "The King" Weathers, a character partially based on himself. He has also been active in Republican politics, serving as a county commissioner for sixteen years and making an unsuccessful run for North Carolina Secretary of State in 1996.
Petty was born in Level Cross, North Carolina, the son of Elizabeth Petty (née Toomes) and Lee Arnold Petty, also a NASCAR driver, and the older brother of NASCAR personality Maurice Petty. Growing up Petty enjoyed whittling and would work at his uncles tobacco fields. He was educated in Randleman, North Carolina and attended Randleman High School, where he was an All-Conference guard on the football team. After his 1955 graduation, he took a business course at Greensboro Junior College, then began work for his father's racing company, Petty Enterprises.
Petty began his NASCAR career on July 18, 1958, sixteen days after his 21st birthday. His first race was held at CNE Stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (the site of BMO Field and the Honda Indy Toronto currently). In 1959, he was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year, after he produced nine top-ten finishes, including six top-five finishes. That year, he had participated in the inaugural Daytona 500 at the new Daytona International Speedway, but after his day ended due to engine trouble, he joined his father Lee's pit crew, who won the race. In Lakewood, Georgia in 1959, Petty won his first race, but his father Lee protested, complaining of a scoring error on the officials' part. Hours later, Lee was awarded the win.
First championship rides (1960–1970)
In 1960, he finished second in the NASCAR Grand National Points Race, and got his first career win at the Charlotte Fairgrounds Speedway. 1963 was his breakout year, winning at tracks like Martinsville and Bridgehampton. In 1964, driving a potent Plymouth with a new Hemi engine, Petty led 184 of the 200 laps to capture his first Daytona 500, en route to nine victories, earning over $114,000 and his first Grand National championship.
Joining in the Chrysler boycott of NASCAR due to the organizing body's ban of the Hemi engine, Petty spent much of 1965 competing as a drag racer. Petty Enterprises installed the Hemi in the new compact Barracuda and lettered "OUTLAWED" on the door. He crashed this car at Southeastern Dragway, in Dallas, Georgia, on February 28, 1965, killing an eight-year-old boy and injuring seven others. Petty, his father Lee, and Chrysler Corporation faced lawsuits totaling more than $1 million, though Petty and his team came to settlements with the lawsuits within one month of the suits being filed. Afterwards, a second Hemi Barracuda was built, this time with an altered wheelbase and eventually with Hilborn fuel injection. This car was lettered with a large "43 JR" on the door. The car was very successful, winning its class at the Bristol Spring Nationals and competing in many match races against well-known racers such as Ronnie Sox, Don Nicholson, Phil Bonner, Huston Platt, Hubert Platt and Dave Strickler. Even after returning to NASCAR once the Hemi was reinstated, Richard continued drag racing the 43 JR until early 1966.
On February 27, 1966, Petty overcame a two-lap deficit to win his second Daytona 500 when the race was stopped on lap 198 of 200 because of a thunderstorm. This made him the first driver to win the event twice. In 1966, he won the first ever race at Middle Georgia Raceway (Morelock 200). Petty broke the half-mile NASCAR record for half-mile tracks with an average speed of 82.023 miles per hour during the 100-mile (160 km) event. He would end up recording 4 wins there in his career, including one in 1970 in which he was very ill before the race. 1967 was a milestone year. In that year, Petty won 27 of the 48 races he entered, including a record ten wins in a row (between August 12 and October 1, 1967). He won his second Grand National Championship. One of the 27 victories was the Southern 500 at Darlington, which would be his only Southern 500 victory. His dominance in this season earned him the nickname "King Richard". He had previously been known as "the Randleman Rocket".
In 1968, Petty won sixteen races including the last ever race at Occoneechee Speedway.
In 1969, Ford significantly ratcheted up their factory involvement in NASCAR when they introduced the Ford Torino Talladega. The Talladega was specifically designed to give Ford a competitive race advantage by being more aerodynamic and thus faster, especially on super-speedway tracks more than a mile long. Petty switched brands to Ford, due to his belief the Plymouth was not competitive on super-speedways; he wanted a slippery Dodge Daytona but Chrysler executives insisted he stay with Plymouth. He would win ten races and finish second in points. He won in 1970 in the sleek new Plymouth Superbird with a shark nose and towel rack wing, Petty returned to Plymouth for the 1970 season. This is the car in which Petty is cast in the Pixar film Cars (2006), in which Richard and Lynda had voice roles.
On February 14, 1971, Petty won his third Daytona 500, driving a brand-new (for 1971) Plymouth Road Runner and beating Buddy Baker, by little more than a car length en route to another historic year, making him the first driver to win the race three times. He won twenty more races (which would make him become the first driver to earn more than $1 million in career earnings) and claimed his third Grand National Championship. At the end of the 1971 season, Chrysler told the Pettys they no longer would receive direct factory funding support; this caused the Petty team great concern. In 1972, STP began what would turn into a successful 28-year sponsorship arrangement with Petty, however, it marked the end of his famous all "Petty Blue" paint job. STP previously insisted on an all STP orangish-red color for the cars, but Petty balked and after an all-night negotiation session, the familiar STP orange/"Petty blue" paint scheme was agreed to as a compromise that would later become part of STP's motorsport paint schemes, most notably Gordon Johncock's win in the 1982 Indianapolis 500 (where the car had a primarily "Petty Blue" scheme). Thanks to his 28 top-ten finishes (25 top-five finishes and eight victories), Petty went on to win his 4th NASCAR Cup Series championship. 1972 was a year of change in other ways, as it was the last year where Petty would campaign a Plymouth-based race car; as in the middle of the year, he debuted to drive a newly built 1972 Dodge Charger in a few races (winning one of them), as he believed that the car would have a slight aero advantage over the Plymouth body style. In a driver's duel on February 18, 1973, Petty, in a newly built 1973 Dodge Charger (a body style he would use exclusively until the end of 1977), outlasted Baker (now with the K&K Insurance Dodge race team) to win his fourth Daytona 500 after Baker's engine gave out with six laps to go. A year later, Petty won the Daytona "450" (shortened twenty laps {50 mi/80 km} due to the energy crisis) for the fifth time en route to his fifth Winston Cup Championship.