Nothing like the first time

Fifty years ago in Columbia 'The King' began his regin over auto racing

By JIM McLAURIN - jmclaurin@thestate.com

Nearly a half a century ago, somewhere on a darkened two-lane road between Columbia and Level Cross, N.C., Richard Petty had his moment of epiphany.

The 21-year-old had been around racing since his dad, Lee, took the family sedan down to Charlotte in 1949 and wrecked it in the first NASCAR race. This moment was different.

As the three young adventurers headed home on that night of July 12, 1958, the younger Petty finally realized what he had done that day.

“I don’t know that there was a time during the race because I was busy. But just going up the road I was thinking, ‘You know, that wasn’t bad. I liked that,’” the 70-year old racing icon said this month as he recalled the day of his first race.

“I do know that going home, with me and Dale Inman and Red Myler in a pickup truck, we got out of a town about the North Carolina border. I told Dale, ‘You know what? I think I’m gon’ like this driving.’”

Coming from a guy who would later be known simply as “The King,” that could have been the understatement of the generation of hard-bitten men who turned stock car racing from little more than a legal joy ride for bootleggers into a mainstream sport.

Since that night on a half-mile oval track called Columbia Speedway, Petty has had his name written and spoken a million times around the racing world, and he has signed nearly that many autographs with his flourishing curlicue signature. Few people who know anything about racing don’t know his name.

But in the next morning’s edition of this newspaper, at the absolute bottom of a 250-word story headlined “Bob Welborn First in Race,” there was only a one-sentence “mention” that became the cornerstone of a career unmatched in racing, perhaps in any sport: “Lee Petty’s son, Richard, driving in his first competitive race, finished sixth.”

THE LEGEND GROWS

“You know what’s funny?” said Kyle Petty. “He’s gotten bigger since he doesn’t race. Because the sport grew after he quit racing.

“The funny part is, the sport grew and he became more famous, but the guys who raced along with him have just been forgotten. There’s just a big separation.”

No, the funny part is, at the time Richard Petty’s son made that statement a couple of weeks ago, it was on what could have been the worst day in the history of Petty Enterprises. Or, depending on your point of view, the best.

On June 11, the Petty family held a news conference to announce that control of the company was being passed to Boston Ventures, a private equity firm. Richard Petty would still be involved at a high level, and the company would still be known as Petty Enterprises. But after more than half a century, someone not named Petty would be pulling the strings.

On the one hand, it was sad to see the last of NASCAR’s original team giants fall. Giants such as the Wood Brothers, which had to be folded into a more successful outfit just to survive, or teams such as Holman Moody, Bud Moore Engineering and Junior Johnson Enterprises, which just disappeared.

On the other hand, Petty’s team remains. Petty, who will turn 71 on Wednesday, is still smiling and signing autographs. And just as many fans stop him today as did 20 years ago.

“We’ve been fortunate,” Richard Petty said. “Racing has given us the opportunity to meet presidents. The people I grew up with, the community I grew up in, probably half of them have never been out of the state.

“I live a different life and work in a different society, but the deal with the racing is it has let me stay in that society, but it has taken me to Hollywood, to the White House, to Japan — all over the world.

“That’s what makes you sit down every once in awhile and say, ‘God, look how lucky you are to have been able to have done all of that stuff.’”

HED GO HERE

There may have been better drivers; Petty never claimed to be the best. He only said he won more races than anyone else, and so far, no one has come close to the 200 he won in a 34-year driving career.

The late Dale Earnhardt matched Petty’s seven championships, but Earnhardt never said he would be the next Richard Petty.

“Richard Petty has done more for racing than any other man,” Johnson once said. “He came into it when it wasn’t a very nice sport and has turned it into what you see today.”

Petty deserves a wing in any racing hall of fame but not because of the records he set. The thing that makes Petty unique is that he set the standard. On or off the track.

“After a race was over, Richard would go out to the fence and sign autographs,” said David Pearson, whose 105 wins is the closest to Petty’s 200. “Sometimes I’d actually go and hide. After a race , when you’re hot and tired, sometimes you’re not up to that.

“But Richard went out and talked to the fans and signed autographs for them. I think he was probably the first one to recognize how important they were.”

For 50 years and counting, the fans have returned that favor: Petty is not only an icon to them but one of them.

“The only difference between me and you and the president of the United States is we have different jobs,” Petty said two weeks ago.” This was my job; this was my career, my life.

“Any of these guys has his career, his life, but we both get up every morning and put on our clothes and go to work and at nighttime we eat supper, go to bed, and get up the next day.

“I’m not anything special, to be sure,” he said. ‘I’m just fortunate to be in this situation.”

Reach McLaurin at (803) 240-3514.