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.
Born in 1937, Richard Petty ran 1184 NASCAR Sprint Cup races over 35 years. While he has won 200 races, he has 712 top ten finishes in his career. Richard Petty is considered the greatest NASCAR driver of all time with 513 consecutive starts from 1971 to 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.
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.
Petty is well known for surviving three dramatic crashes, including one at the 1970 Rebel 400, where his car lost a tire, slammed into the wall and flipped several times. Amazingly, Petty suffered only a shoulder injury, although the incident prompted the league to begin requiring safety netting for the driver's seat in all subsequent races.
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.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1997 and a year later, NASCAR named him one of its 50 all time greatest drivers. This award was followed up with a Medal of Freddom in 1992; the highest honor accorded to civilians in the US.
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.
Born in 1937, Richard Petty ran 1184 NASCAR Sprint Cup races over 35 years. While he has won 200 races, he has 712 top ten finishes in his career. Richard Petty is considered the greatest NASCAR driver of all time with 513 consecutive starts from 1971 to 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.
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.
Petty is well known for surviving three dramatic crashes, including one at the 1970 Rebel 400, where his car lost a tire, slammed into the wall and flipped several times. Amazingly, Petty suffered only a shoulder injury, although the incident prompted the league to begin requiring safety netting for the driver's seat in all subsequent races.
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.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1997 and a year later, NASCAR named him one of its 50 all time greatest drivers. This award was followed up with a Medal of Freddom in 1992; the highest honor accorded to civilians in the US.
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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