Petty, Richard

Richard Petty, in full Richard Lee Petty, (born July 2, 1937, Level Cross, N.C., U.S.), American stock-car racer who is the most successful driver in the history of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Petty won 200 NASCAR Cup Series races in his career—the most, by far, of any driver—and seven Cup Series championships (1964, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, and 1979).

Petty came from a racing family. His father, Lee Petty, was a three-time Cup Series champion, and he also founded the Petty Enterprises racing team. Richard Petty began racing in NASCAR’s Cup Series (then called the Grand National Series) in 1958, and in 1959 he accumulated nine top-10 finishes and was named Rookie of the Year. In February 1960 he earned his first Cup victory, in Charlotte, North Carolina. He won his first Daytona 500 (NASCAR’s most prestigious event) in 1964 and went on to claim his first Cup championship that season. The following year NASCAR introduced new rules that made the 426-inch hemispherical-head engine in Petty’s Plymouth illegal. Disappointed, Petty left stock-car racing and spent a year on the drag-racing circuit. He returned to NASCAR in 1966, and in 1967 he enjoyed the best single-season performance by any stock-car racer, speeding to a record 27 first-place finishes and earning his second Cup Series championship.

Driving his familiar number 43 blue-and-red car with the STP logo, Petty continued to collect victories in the 1970s, and he won five more championships in the Cup Series: 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, and 1979. His title in 1979 made him the first driver to win seven Cup championships. (Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson each later also won seven.) Petty’s success could be attributed to his intelligent driving and the mechanical expertise of the entire Petty team (brother Maurice built the engines; cousin Dale Inman built the cars). The team also became known as innovators, credited with introducing roll bars, nylon window screens, cooled helmets, and two-way radios to stock-car racing.

Petty retired in 1992, having raced in 1,184 NASCAR events, winning 200 of them. He took first place in the Daytona 500 in 1964, 1966, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1979, and 1981. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1997, and he was part of the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2010. His son Kyle and grandson Adam also raced in NASCAR series.