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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.
Petty comes from a racing family; his father Lee was the winner of 1959's Daytona 500 (the first year that the event was held) and himself a NASCAR Championship winner three times over. His son Kyle is of course well known to NASCAR fans - and tragically, Petty lost his grandson Adam in a New Hampshire Interational Speedway accident only a little over a month after his father passed away.
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 got his start in racing at the age of 21 and was 1959's NASCAR Rookie of the Year with a record of 9 top 10 finishes (6 of these were top 5 finishes!). He continued to be one of the sport's top racers right up to his 1992 retirement; his last top 10 finish was in the 1991 Budweiser at the Glen race.
Other than his winning record, Petty is well known for surviving numerous crashes, including three which were especially dramatic. In 1970's Rebel 400, his car (a Plymouth Road Runner) slammed into the wall after losing a tire and flipped several times. Petty walked away from the incident with a shoulder injury; but NASCAR began to require safety netting over the driver's side window in events after this.
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.
In 1997, Petty was accorded some long due recognition, becoming an International Motorsports Hall of Famer. The following year saw him being named among the 50 greatest drivers in NASCAR and in 1992, he received the nation's highest honor awarded to civilians, the Medal of Freedom.
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.
With a racing heritage handed down from his father that won the first Daytona 500, and passed down to his racing son, Kyle, Richard Petty's life has revolved around the racing world and continues to this day.
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.
Petty comes from a racing family; his father Lee was the winner of 1959's Daytona 500 (the first year that the event was held) and himself a NASCAR Championship winner three times over. His son Kyle is of course well known to NASCAR fans - and tragically, Petty lost his grandson Adam in a New Hampshire Interational Speedway accident only a little over a month after his father passed away.
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 got his start in racing at the age of 21 and was 1959's NASCAR Rookie of the Year with a record of 9 top 10 finishes (6 of these were top 5 finishes!). He continued to be one of the sport's top racers right up to his 1992 retirement; his last top 10 finish was in the 1991 Budweiser at the Glen race.
Other than his winning record, Petty is well known for surviving numerous crashes, including three which were especially dramatic. In 1970's Rebel 400, his car (a Plymouth Road Runner) slammed into the wall after losing a tire and flipped several times. Petty walked away from the incident with a shoulder injury; but NASCAR began to require safety netting over the driver's side window in events after this.
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.
In 1997, Petty was accorded some long due recognition, becoming an International Motorsports Hall of Famer. The following year saw him being named among the 50 greatest drivers in NASCAR and in 1992, he received the nation's highest honor awarded to civilians, the Medal of Freedom.
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.
With a racing heritage handed down from his father that won the first Daytona 500, and passed down to his racing son, Kyle, Richard Petty's life has revolved around the racing world and continues to this day.
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