The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Petty at 80 is still going strong
Car owner hasn’t driven since 1992 but is fan favorite.
Richard Petty heard someone shout for the King to stop as his golf cart sped past rows of RVs parked at the Pocono Raceway infield.
Petty couldn’t ask his driver to hit the brakes for one fan, not with 100 or more waiting in line for him outside the track. All were eager for a greeting and a bit of his perfect penmanship — with that looping script in the R and P — on a piece of memorabilia, a signature as much a part of his persona as his feathered cowboy hats, dark glasses and cowboy boots.
“Finally, I’m going to meet the man,” said 52-year-old Steve Millett of Syracuse, N.Y. “It’s been 44 years of being a fan.”
Millett bought a ticket for just his third NASCAR race because he wanted to meet the King. Millett packed the camper for the three-hour drive, slipped on his Petty T-shirt and STP hat, and had Petty sign the hood of a model 1971 Dodge Charger. Millet just wanted to thank Petty for a lifetime of memories.
Most of the fans didn’t remember Petty from his days as the greatest stock car driver alive. Kids smiled as parents pointed and said, “Yes, that’s the King. You know, from ‘Cars’?” The rest waited because Dad was a fan. Because Grandpa told them about the time he was at Pocono when Petty broke his neck in an accident.
Petty, who had six colored Sharpies and a can of Skoal in his pocket, never stopped smiling and shook hands for every selfie and snapshot. Yes, the blue hairs and graybeards had old-school cameras for their audience with the King, perfect for a race car owner who keeps tabs of his meetand-greets on a paper schedule. One by one, they came to the front with a variation of the stories Petty has heard for nearly 60 years.
“It pays the bills,” Petty said. “I’m just an old guy walking around, hasn’t been in a race car in 25 years, and people still want an autograph or a picture. I guess it’s because I’m that old.”
Petty waved goodbye after an hour and grabbed a seat on the cart. On the way back to his motorhome, he directed his driver back to the area where he remembered that fan calling for him. Richard Keller had devoted a shrine to Petty around his RV and was elated when the Hall of Fame driver signed his name next to a Tony Stewart banner on the trailer wall.
The King is synonymous with NASCAR, a co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, and he has shown no inclination to retire when his 80th birthday arrived Sunday. Few people in the sport can rival Petty in popularity and accessibility, and the calls for the King never cease at tracks.
“I just wonder if my name is Joe what they would have called me,” Petty said. “King Joe don’t go over too good.”
Petty has no sage advice on how to live to 80.
Still strikingly slender, he walks with a full, healthy stride that belies the physical anguish from a 35-year career riddled with injuries. The last two of Petty’s seven Daytona 500 victories — in 1979 and 1981 — both came after operations to remove part of his stomach because of serious ulcer problems. He had his gallbladder removed between the 1985 and 1986 seasons.
Concussions? He suffered a bunch of those. But who kept count back in the day when drivers hit 200 mph wearing not much more than an openface helmet and a seat belt? Petty broke a leg, his fingers, his knees. He broke his neck in 1980 at Pocono when the No. 43 went up a wall and was eventually struck on the driver’s side by another car. At the hospital, the doctor looked at the X-rays and asked in amazement, “When did you break your neck before?” He shrugged. Who knows? There was the broken left arm and shoulder, seen dangling from the window in a 1970 crash at Darlington, that caused him to faint from pain and forced him to miss starts for the only time in his career. In the 1988 Daytona 500, Petty was involved in a horrifying crash. His car hit the wall, flew into the air and barrel-rolled violently before it slid back into the wall.
“When things happen, they happen so fast you haven’t got time to get scared,” he said.
If Petty feels major pain or has bouts of memory loss, he hides it well. He retired from driving in 1992 after 35 years.
“All my joints is working. All the broken bones has healed back up,” he said.
Petty still dips tobacco. He enjoys his wine (merlot) and his steaks as red as they come. He snacks daily on popcorn but eschews coffee. The King is known to even sneak a pinch of raw meat off a hamburger right before it hits the grill. Like many in his generation, he has no use for a cellphone. And he sleeps. A lot. Petty is fresh and focused for his fans because he never skips a chance at a nap.
The NASCAR circus stretches from early February to late November with few days off in one of the most grueling schedules in sports. Plane. Race. Plane. Garage. Countless appearances for sponsors, who all want a piece of Petty. He’s never slowed down — not even in the face of tragedy — and has no plans to ease up with Richard Petty Motorsports boasting only a handful of checkered flags. Bubba Wallace is Petty’s driver in the Cup series with Aric Almirola recovering from a fractured vertebra.
Kyle Petty, his 57-year-old son and a former driver, said racing is life for his father.
“If he couldn’t go to the racetrack, he would just sit down and wither away,” Kyle Petty said. “I honestly believe that until the day they put him in the ground, he’s going to be at a racetrack somewhere.”
In 1,184 starts, Petty had a record 200 wins, 157 second-place finishes, 712 top 10s and 123 poles. He won championships in 1964, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1979, a total matched only by Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson. He even starred as himself in the 1972 movie “The Richard Petty Story.”
And if he feels 80 now, it’s hard for Petty to say.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I ain’t never been this old.”