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.
In his 35 year career, he raced an astounding 1184 Sprint Cup races. His record includes not just 200 wins, but also 712 top ten finishes - an impressive achievement. Between 1971 and 1989, Petty had 513 consecutive starts; it is not for nothing that many believe him to be the greatest racer ever to get behind the wheel.
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.
Petty Enterprises is operated by the Petty family and in 2008 they moved the race team into a vacated Yates Racing facility that was 115,000 square feet. Richard Petty still signs autographs for people, even though he is in his 70's now.
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.
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.
In 1980, at Pocono, he broke his neck and kept the injury hidden for the next few races. In 1988 at the Daytona 500, his crash sent parts everywhere after numerous flips and he sustained temporary vision loss from the g-forces, but otherwise walked away uninjured.
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.
Petty was always close to his fans, staying hours after races had concluded to sign autographs. He has also appeared in several films portraying himself. These films include Speed Zone, Stroker Ace and Swing Vote.
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.
In his 35 year career, he raced an astounding 1184 Sprint Cup races. His record includes not just 200 wins, but also 712 top ten finishes - an impressive achievement. Between 1971 and 1989, Petty had 513 consecutive starts; it is not for nothing that many believe him to be the greatest racer ever to get behind the wheel.
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.
Petty Enterprises is operated by the Petty family and in 2008 they moved the race team into a vacated Yates Racing facility that was 115,000 square feet. Richard Petty still signs autographs for people, even though he is in his 70's now.
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.
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.
In 1980, at Pocono, he broke his neck and kept the injury hidden for the next few races. In 1988 at the Daytona 500, his crash sent parts everywhere after numerous flips and he sustained temporary vision loss from the g-forces, but otherwise walked away uninjured.
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.
Petty was always close to his fans, staying hours after races had concluded to sign autographs. He has also appeared in several films portraying himself. These films include Speed Zone, Stroker Ace and Swing Vote.
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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