SolveYourProblem Article Series: NASCAR
Everything You Need To Know About NASCAR

The King of NASCAR Racing – Richard Petty

If you’ve recently seen the children’s movie CARS, you might be wondering who exactly the King is and what the real-life version of the car is. Well, similarly to other cars depicted in the fun summer flick, the car named the King refers to the King himself…the King of racing that is—not to be confused, of course, with Elvis. Richard Petty himself was the voice of the car that carried his name for the film; his wife read the part of, naturally, his wife. Called the greatest NASCAR driver of all time, he also prided himself on being accessible to his fans and being a responsible part of the racing world, refusing alcohol emblazoned sponsorship.

Petty’s career took off as NASCAR itself was taking off; he grew alongside the sport itself and was a part of the monstrous changes that NASCAR went through from the fifties up to the 21st century. Petty began racing, following in his father’s footsteps like so many other greats of NASCAR history, in the 50’s and retired after a spectacular career in 1992. Like most NASCAR drivers, he was in a few serious crashes, but managed to walk away from each one of them and walk onto the next race track; some of NASCAR’s greatest racers have been lost to on-track tragedies, but Petty is not one of them. His lengthy career included three very serious crashes, serious enough in other occurrences to take the life of the driver, but in Petty’s case, each time he made it through in sound health. This is especially heartening in today’s NASCAR culture where safety has become the king with everyone working to meet new safety guidelines and build safer structures as the frame of NASCAR tracks.

His list of wins is too long to cite, winning race after race, and coming out always a split-second ahead of the next guy, Petty had exactly what it takes to be a world-class auto-racer. Many NASCAR buffs consider him to be the greatest racer in the history of NASCAR although as his retirement becomes longer and longer ago, fewer hard-core NASCAR fans have seen one of his races live. Despite not having seen the man in action, younger NASCAR fans recognize his wholly non-disputed spot of honor in the world of auto-racing.

In 1984, Petty earned his incredible 200th win at the Firecracker 400. The race was attended by Ronald Reagan, which marked the first time a NASCAR race saw a president in attendance. Surely, the win was a memorable one for Petty; it’s one that went down in the history books of NASCAR. 200 wins are not easy to come by, but the King, of course, made it look easy. He celebrated his win with the president himself, marking a high point in his career. However, his career was far from over; it would be 8 more years before he would retire, and like all those who are truly great in their sport, Petty held his own till the end, staying on the cutting edge of NASCAR racing until the very end of his career.

Petty was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in America in 1989 and was later on inducted into the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame, post-retirement, in 1997. It was no surprise that Petty was on the list issued by NASCAR in 1998 that brought together what they had decided were the 50 greatest NASCAR drivers of all time. The list was to celebrate the 50 years of NASCAR racing since its inception and to honor the men who made NASCAR into the incredibly popular sport that it is today.

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