Richard Petty Racing | Lifestyle

by DeniseISmithson

Richard Petty is a racing legend, winning a record 200 races during his career and winning the Daytona 500 a record seven times. Besides Dale Earnhardt, he is the only other driver to win the NASCAR Championship seven times, and is the record he is most known for.

Over 35 years in the sport, Richard Petty competed in no less than 1184 NASCAR Sprint Cup races. Not only does he have 200 wins to his record, but also has had 712 top ten finishes. He is considered one of NASCAR's all time greats and perhaps even the greatest, having had 513 consecutive starts between the years 1971 and 1989.

Racing comes naturally to Richard Petty - his father Lee Petty won the very fist Daytona 500 race in 1959 (Lee Petty is also a three time NASCAR Championship winner). It seems to run in the family; his son Kyle is a NASCAR star in his own right. Tragically, his grandson Adam passed away in an accident at the New Hampshire International Speedway, right after he had lost his famous father.

The Petty family owns and operates Petty Enterprises, his family's racing team. Based out of an enormous 100,000+ square foot former Yates Racing facility, he is still active in the organization and is as always popular with the fans and is to this day commonly asked to sign autographs.

He started his racing career a few days after his 21st birthday, and in 1959 was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year, after 9 top 10 finishes that included six Top 5 finishes. In late 1991, Richard Petty announced that he would retire after the 1992 season and his final top ten finish came at the 1991 Budweiser at the Glen.

Richard Petty is remembered for three of the many crashes he survived. In 1970, at the Rebel 400, he was injured when his Plymouth Road Runner cut a tire and slammed into a wall, flipped several times, injured his shoulder and bounced his head off the pavement several times. This accident caused NASCAR to require the safety netting over the driver's window.

After a 1980 race in Pocono, Petty hid a broken neck, running a few more races afterwards. Most recently, Petty walked away with only minor temporary vision damage from a crash which sent parts of his car flying in all directions - this was in 1988's Daytona 500.

Richard Petty was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1997. He was named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers in 1998 and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by George H W Bush in 1992, the first sports figure to receive the honor.

Richard Petty was known for his accessibility to his fans, where he would sign autographs for hours and he increased the popularity of the racing sports. He has been featured in movies as himself, such as Speed Zone, Stroker Ace with Burt Reynolds, and the 2008 movie, Swing Vote, besides the 1972 video release, The Petty Story.

Richard Petty has spent nearly his entire adult life in the world of racing and he is still active in NASCAR (though no longer behind the wheel) even now.

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

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