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From the book KING RICHARDby Bill Libby with Richard Petty Copyright@1977 by Bill Libby and Richard PettyPublished by Doubleday & Com-pany, Inc.

oolr1n 1ficc-drlverr lllrcmt daddf utsoItm surc lf daddyhad drlvcnIndlanapcllsr ltdbe drlvlnglndlanapclls.Uhatcver therts|rs uerc, ItdaccclDe them. Butdaddy drcvc esefcr fcrm cfraclng and I canscc hev muchmcrc dangerousceher raclng lsott

lN MUCH THE SAME WAY a doctor candetermine problems in a person's bodythrough close examination of x-rays, RichardPetty can determine the current health of hisengine by examining the firing tips of his sparkplugs through magnification. Ray LustigPhotos.

THE MONTH OF MAY means lndianapo-I lis to most of the car racing fraternity,but to the Grand Prix group it meansMonaco, and to the NASCAR crowd itmeans Talladega and Charlotte and acouple of stops in-between.No classic is comparable to the Indianap-olis 500 in racing. lt has a historical tradi-tion dating back to 1911. Between a half-million and a million persons pay to seethe practices, time-trials, and race duringthe month of May, and more than a milliondollars in prizes are paid out.A race-day crowd of around 300,000 fansand a first-place prize of close to $250,000have lured Bobby and Donnie Allison,Cale Yarborough, and LeeRoy Yarboroughoff the Grand National tour, but, notably,Richard Petty and David Pearson have re-sisted this temptation. Pearson says,"Drivers die every couple of races at Indi-anapolis. lt's an accident when a driverdies at Daytona. l'll stick to what seemssafe to me.""No racing is safe," says Petty, "but oursis the safest of all. lf you wanted safety, youwouldn't race. But a man is a fool for run-ning unreasonable risks."Petty points out, "The Pettys always havepioneered safety in racing. Daddy was the

first driver to put a roll-bar in his stock carback in the early 1950s. The other racerslaughed at him. The officials didn't want tolet the car race. But Pa put it to them thatthey'd be responsible if a car turned over,caved in and killed a driver, so they gave in.Now all stock cars are beefed-up with roll-bars and a lot of lives have been saved."Billy Foster died when he came half outof his car and whacked a wall at Riverside.After I came out of my car in an accident atDarlington in 1970, we rigged up'a nettingon the driver's side to keep me in my car.Now everyone uses the same sort of setup.You learn from experience. Jim Parduedied because he went right through a f limsyfence. They put up a retaining wall so noother driver would die that way. The nextyear I hit the wall right where Pardue hadhit the fence, but I was fine."There was a day when drivers didn'twear hard helmets or seat belts or shoulderstraps or flame-proof uniforms and a lot oflives were lost that no longer are lost.Drivers still get hurt and killed in our racing,as well as other racing, but we don't wantanyone to die, and we remove all the riskswe can. Race after race, drivers are so wellprotected they walk away from wrecks thatwould kill a man on a highway."l'm a race-driver, like my daddy was.I'm sure if daddy had driven lndianapolis,I'd be driving Indianapolis. Whatever theriskswere,.l'd acceptthem. But daddy drovea safer form of racing and I can see howmuch more dangerous other racing is.We're enclosed in a lot of strong metal andour heavy cars don't turn over easy. Thedriver is much more exposed in those flimsylittle open-wheeled Indy and Grand Prixcars and they're so light they bounce allover a track."l've thought of giving Indy a go, but Iwon't. lt's a great race, but we have somegreat races, too. I don't know that the Indy500 means more to them than the Daytona500 or the Southern 500 or the World 600means to us. ldon't knowthattheir300,000crowd looks like more than some of 'our

100,000 crowds. You can only see so manypeople at one time. The kind of money theypay appeals to me, but money doesn't meanthat much to me. They don't just give itaway, you know. Cale and a couple of ourother boys found that out."You have to have a car capable of win-ning to make the effort worthwhile, andthere aren't but a few of those. I'm sure Icould have one. Foyt keeps offering meone of his whenever I want it. But l'd stillhave to learn to drive it. lndy cars and Indyracing are different. Joe Namath and Cat-fish Hunter both throw balls, but they'redifferent balls thrown different ways. I'msure if they'd started soon enough and stuckto it long enough. Catfish could throw afootballf ine and Namath could make moneypitching baseballs, but you never know."l've been to Indianapolis a couple oftimes, but I never got to see the race. Ididn't like the looks of those little old Junebugs. I don't know if I'd like laying on myback so clgse to the ground with thosewheels all around me and the wind in myface. Foyt showed me the little bitty shoeshe drives in even though he has feet as bigas mine. He said l'd have to squeeze intothe same sort of shoes because the pedalswere so close together you couldn't wearbig boots."l've driven around the track in a pas-senger car, but l've neverdriven an Indy car.I was offered a ride, but I didn't take it. Yeh,I suppose it's strange, but I just never did.Maybe I was afraid I'd like it. Built just forracing like those cars are, I'm sure they workwell and feel fine. Actually, Maurice, Daleand me, we've talked about building an lndycar. They fool around with their cars somuch I'm sure we could build a clean carthat would beat them at their own game.But we won't. lt costs too much to build acar these days. lt costs too much to build acar just on the chance of winning lndy, andwith the rest of the championship trailshrinking, I really believe Indy will be astock-car race within ten years. I also be-lieve we'll be running smaller cars, likecompacts, within five years."lndy is interesting, but, driving or build-ing, I wouldn't want to take all the timeaway from our tour it would take to do thejob the way it should be done. My sponsor,STP, might go for it, but I don't want to giveup a steady income for a pot-shot at a pot-of-gold. And I really don't want to run therisks they run for their money. One yearone of our boys got into one of those wildaccidents they have there. I took a news-paper full of photos of it and spread it infront of Linda and I said, 'Good news. I justgot a ride for the next race at Indy.'She liketo kill me right then and there."Petty says, "l raced stock cars at a USACevent at Pocono and I couldn't believe myeyes when I saw the Indy drivers comingout of a meeting. There wasn't a one ofthem that wasn't scarred from burns orwasn't missing fingers or a hand. And theytalk about their accidents like they werewar stories. They're proud of their injuries.Theyweartheir scars as if they were medalsof honor. Well I don't dig that. I don't havea death wish or anything like that. I don'tthink they do, either, but I think they bragabout their accidents as a defense againstfeeling like fools."You just don't see scarred and brokenSTOCK CAR RACING2

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bodies driving Grand National. We getdrivers hurt or we lose one here or there,but it's rare. We prove it doesn't take deathto draw crowds to races. You don't daretouch in lndy racing. We rub metal all thetime. They wouldn't dare take the chanceswe take. They can't race the way we race.To us, a race is a race, it's not an accident.l'll just stick to the kind of racers and thekind of racing I know best."The one time he went away from the rac-ing he knows he will regret as long as helives. When Chrysler withdrew from theGrand National tour in 1965 and paid thePettys to stay away in.protest of NASCARrestrictions on its engines, the Pettys pickedup eating money and kept active by drag-racing a Plymouth, primarily in exhibitionappearances.At Southeastern International Drag Stripin Dallas, Georgia, on the 28th of February,Petty pulled a standing-room only crowdof approximately 10,000 fans into an arenadesigned to seat 2,000. Richard got off to aslow start in a match race with Arnie Bes-wick. As Richard accelerated, a wheel flewoff his car, it swerued left, then right, doveinto a ditch, rode up an embankment, andSEPTEMBER 1977

landed on a fence against which many fanswere crowded.An eye-witness repofis, "As I ran overthere, I saw people running right over oneanother to get out of the way. As the areacleared, I saw people lying on the ground,bleeding. I saw a lady holding a baby thatlooked like it was hurt. The lady was hys-terical. Then the ambulance came to takeaway the hurt people."

Petty unbuckled his harness and tum-bled from his car to the track. As severalpersons rushed to his aid, he was heard tosay, "The heck with me. Get to those peo-ple I hit." They did, but an eight-year-oldboy, Wayne Dye, was dead, and six or sevenothers were injured, some seriously. Pettywas uninjured. His crew took him and theirwrecked car back to their truck and theyloaded up their equipment and left.He says, "l don't know what happened.They say a wheel flew off. The suspensionmay have broken. Later, therewas too muchdamage done to the car to tell. All I know isI lost my steering and went out of controland when I hit my brakes I didn't stop.When I went into the ditch, the car wentstraight up and laid down on top of thisfour-foot fence, half on one side, half onthe other."l don't think the people were wherethey shouldn't have been, but that fencemay have been too close to the track andthey may have been crowded in against ittoo tight. There just weren't any safety fea.tures. I hit so hard and was so shook up Icouldn't feel if I hit people, but lguess I did.I couldn't see much, but I think some ofthem may have hurt themselves runninginto each other."When I got out of the car, I was still onmy side of the fence away f rom the people.I never did look at the people. I went downand got into the truck. The others, they justthrew everything up on the truck, we tookthe wrecker and pulled the drag car out ofthe place and three or four miles down theroad before we even stopped to load it up.After that, it was a long, hard trip home."There wasn't anything we could do forthose people and we just wanted to get

away from there. When we found out a boyhad died we felt terrible. None of us wantedto go drag-racing again after that and wenever did. I lost all interest in it. Oh, itwasn't drag-racing's fault. I don't know if itwas the track's fault. I don't think it was myfault. lt was just one of those things. lf ithad happened in Grand National, maybe I'dhave lost interest in that."l don't think of it as something that53

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THE PETTY FANS are fanatics, as thisyoungster at Rockingham straining, with hismother's help, to get a glance of his hero,testifies. Howard O'Reilly Photo.

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happened because we'd been squeezedoff the Grand National tour and had takento the drag strips. I'm a fatalist and lthink ofit as something that was bound to happenwherever I was and wherever that poor boywas. But I think most of that big crowd wassqueezed in there to see me. That poor boy,too, maybe. I hate for it to have happenedand lwish it hadn't."lt doesn't do that poor boy or his par-ents any good, but it's the only thing Ireally regret from my life and my career. lt'ssomething else when a driver dies. We allaccept the risks of this sport and we'velearned to live with death. Not like it, butlive with it. I guess we're a bunch of hard-hearted people, but if we weren't I don'tguess we could be racers."You try not to get too attached to otherracers so you won't feel too bad if some-thing happens to him. You can't get tooinvolved with other people's problems. Likeif you're driving down a highway and seean accident, it bothers you, but five milesdown the road you've forgotten it. The onlyway you can tolerate the hard things of thislife is to keep going."l don't feel any fear for myself at all. lf aracer does, I don't think he should race.I'm sure he's not a good driver. lf a racerdoes, I think he's young and just starting, Idon't think he's a veteran or he wouldn'thave lasted. You can't have fear affectingyour judgment and interferring with themoves you have to make right now."l don't think a driver thinks about acci-dents much. lt's only the other people-the press people and the fans-who thinkabout it and make us think about it andtalk about it. When drivers are together,they talk about winning, not getting hurt. Ithink one of the reasons I'm a good driver isthat I'm not out to impress myself or anyoneeise with being brave, I'm not out to go asfast as I can, only fast enough to win, I'monly out to drive as best I can. I accept theaccidents l've had and they don't affect me.When my time comes, it's just as likely tobe when I'm crossing a street as when I'mdriving a car."However, when asked which of his manyrecords and accomplishments gave himthe most satisfaction, he has been known to

ing him out the window, he came to andcomplained about his shoulder."As the 42.000 fans watched in stunnedsilence, the superstarwas put on a stretcherand taken by ambulance to the track's med-ical office. There the doctor diagnosed hismost serious injury as a dislocated shoulderand tended to his cuts and bruises. PapaPetty, Maurice, Dale and Lynda rushed in tofind Richard recovering, though suffering.Maurice said, "The car just took off. After ithit the wall, it really took off. I thought itwas bad. Thank God it isn't." When Leeemerged smiling, the gathering around theoffice relaxed. When Richard waved to thefans as he was returned to the ambulanceto be taken to a local hospital for the firsttime in his career, the crowd roared itsrelief.As Richard recalls it: "The car we tookthere was really ready. We qualified fast.As I practiced it, it got faster and faster untilit was the fastest car there. But I went toofast with it. it didn't stick comin' off a cor-ner and ran right into an inside wall, whichtore the side pretty bad. We decided thebest thing to do at that point was go getthe short-track car, which we did."When I put it on the track it was a sec-ond slower a lap and that bothered me. Weput the good engine in it and it handled allright, but it just didn't get through thestraights quick. I qualified it into the raceall right, but in the race I was driving itharder than I should have to make up formy loss of speed."About eight or ten laps before mywreck, I got into a turn too high and tappedthe wall with the right front wheel, and mysteering got messed up. I kept going, slowerfor a few laps, then faster. Like I say, in afew laps you can learn to drive anything.Soon, I had it going as fast as ever."But when I come tearing out of thefourth turn and I got a little behind in mysteering. lt was pure driver error, just likethe other times I hit the wall. I got too highand when I tried to correct, the steering re-sponse wasn't there. I hit the outside wallhard and completely lost control."l was trying to steer it, but I had stoppedbeing a driver and become a passenger. ltwent where it wanted to. which was downmuch. rfs only 'Tii: xi"1,,"1;.'!?l?Ti: ,'i lL3"#'#'i1?; l3'?"1["ii]'i:i"iflt :,""s"J"if"l3 :lltl:the oehcr DcoDlc fl,"o"fl,i1"n,i?"5,liiL3'"Y.o;jixf."J*li 31,11,T,i;,1-rll,i","'ilixlj3:i*:,lr'Jl"i::

- ahC pfcsls readied for the race during practice. They Lord gets your mind oit ii tte putts a ptug.pcoDlc anlc ehe ffiff'"l5 ,"f""Xi3?5"",,?'#"X"-:.'1fl5fi; .:.,liX#:,1H"":f,:lx'llianr t "u" r,"etanS- VlfC thhk in.,_!.".I""": . .. to think about it. Mv lite didn't flash beforeaDcue rc and ln"Li ,^y,iii"-""?T:lltll',1"#::1fl':ff.',x"iff:l lffi,fii?::i?H"-ll:l'T"'5'"'"$i':"1us thlnlr about rc i,i,'ffJ,1##lill:Iiltl"X1'j:::JJfl".:i Hl!'Tili:,'*:[:T:"X,::!"i::l:[ffi13and tallr aDcut lll?i"J',,13*,1J"""i,1[3i::::s'""",$r*ff *'P.if,""[lliil,[':oJi3i,," n"nn,nn,nIt.'' i|;;1"3'il::Jl,"i;'.:?ffi:',t :li?.:'lJ; mTI,'3;'3:"o.:H"Ti":1l":'":T'l,n';:side before it stopped in a steaming heap of those llips and they're really somethingupside down. but it's like it's happening to someone else

rHEspo,LER-penys*"p:q"r Arrffl['nlti"#".jl,:i"t"::Xl'$XT,fiii:f *"Tfi:iJir"i,:l?:ilT"o,iilll,?l]i"*,*satisfaction trom winning the Purolalor 5oo at lowed bv Buck Briqance of another crew reached in and grabbed myleltarmand itPocono, especiallv since his winner's chck is ;;;i";A"y iil"rGh, wrro trad wrecteo hurt like heck. I said for him to take it easysigned by the folks at his arch-rival's sponsroavio eanett prror-o. out of the race earlier. Wiping- a bloody because it was hurt. I guess they did be-- linger he'd cut on torn metal, Allen said, cause they got me out ot there. They said I"He was out cold, just hang ing in the straps. was moaning something awful. I'm glad IAs I unstrapped him and we started work- can't recall it, because I might wake up atSTOCK CAR RACING

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midnightscreaming and hollering if lcould."l vaguely remember them moving mehere and there, pitching me back andfofth from stretchers to tables. I guessthey had a nurse cutting my uniform off, butall I know is I woke up and this gal wascoming at me down there with the biggestpair of scissors you over saw and I thought,'Oh, my God,' and I passed out again."l remember them giving me a shot witha big old needle and the next thing I knowthey've got me on a stretcher and they'retrying to put me in an ambulance and onecat dropped one side of the stretcher and Ihad to hold on with my good arm or Iwould've fallen off the thing."They got me in there and Linda and oneof her buddies, Martha Jane jumped inwith me and we took off. lwas alert enoughto realize we were going out pit road back-ward, against traffic. I raised up and I askedwhere the hell the driver thought he wasgoing. The driver said to Florence Hospital.I said you ain't gonna' get there this way. Ioffered to drive, but he turned me down.

it wasn't long before I was ready to leave.Only I didn't have anything to wear. Theboys were headed back home with mysuitcases in the truck. Lynda had comedown on race day without even a tooth-brush. My uniform had been cut to shredsand my boots disappeared. I was left withmy underwear. I borrowed a pair of britchesand a slip-over sweater and I walked out ofthere in my bare feet."Daddy and Maurice and Dale took it somuch in stride it almost made me mad, butLynda was scared, I could see. She wassitting in the scorers' stand when it hap-pened and as soon as she ran to the hospi-tal, she kept running into peopletelling herI was fine. She knew they didn't know, andthat made it worse. She wasn't interested inbeing consoled, only in seeing for herselfhow lwas. When she saw lwas all right, shewas all right, but it shook her."lt was a reminder that this was racingand these things happen in racing, in casethingswentso smooth forso long that she'dforgot.

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"lt reminded me, too. lt didn't scare me,but what I can remember I can't forget. Idon't think about it exactly, but it's in theback of my mind. To this day I drive slowerthrough that corner than any other, and alittle more carefully on that track than anyother. lt's an old, hard place, very unfor-giving. lf you miss your line, you're in trou-ble and I know it as well as anyone alive."l'm not sure if it was my worst accident,but it was my most spectacular and it's ex-citing to see on film. Sometimes an acci-dent that doesn't look like much does moredamage if you happen to hit just the wrongway. But I didn't lose any parts of me, I'mstill all here."The thing that hurt worst is it cost me adriving title. I was leading when it hap-pened and I missed just enough races tomiss out. I got back to racing as soon as Icould, and, even though the shoulder hurt,I did as good as ever. Actually, it was my

third best season. lwon 18 races. The nextseason I won 21. I averaged almost 20 winsa year for f ive years, the late 60s through '71 ."l think the accident made me run harderthan ever. You talk to anyone who runsagainst me and he'll tell you I'm runningharder than ever."In the spring of 1975, he was nearly 38years of age and had been hunched intohot, noisy racing cars under severe strainfor four or five hours at a time almost everyweek since he was 21. He ate irregularly.During pit-stops, an aide would push a trayfullof pills at him to gulp down.His listed measurements of 6-2 and 195pounds suggest a sturdy man, but, strip-ping to shower after races, he looks terriblythin and pale. He was so hard of hearing heoften had to ask you repeat what you saidand sometimes seemed to be reading lips.He seemed relaxed around racing, butrumors persisted that he had stomachtrouble and had never shaken off the ef-fects of being "gassed" by carbon monox-ide which leaked into his car during a raceabout ten years ago. A couple of times hehad staggered from races run in humidheat requiring oxygen and cold compressesto bring him back. As though insulted, hedenied he had any special problems: "Along race takes a lot out of a driver. Anydriver. I'm not the only one who neededoxygen at times. l'm not a bull like BuddyBaker, but no one ever has run 500 miles asmany times as I have and there's no way Icould run 30 or 4O races ayear, year afteryear, if I wasn't fit."Everyone has problems. People say I'mhard of hearing from the roar of the en-gines. The fact is, when I was in the third orfourth grade of school, a nurse comingaround to test the kids' hearing found out Iwas hard of hearing. I was sent to spe-cialists, but they couldn't correct it. I'vebeen to Duke University where they'reresearching hearing problems and theycouldn't help me. l've been told I have oldears. As I understand it the feelers insidethe ears that help you hear are going awayas they do as a man gets older."lt doesn't bother me much, but when aman is standing behind me, talking to me,there's no way I can hear him. I have to turnaround to look at him while he talks to me.I half-way read lips. I have a hearing aid, butI only use it when I'm watching TV or at amovie or at some meeting where I figure itwill embarrass me if people notice I'm nothearing. lt's funny, but in the garage, theguys talk loud when they're cutting up, butstarttowhisperwhen theyget down to busi-ness. lt drives me mad trying to hearwhat'shappening."Maybe being around loud engines madeit worse, but daddy was around racing along time listening to engines and he canhear as well as anyone. And there's lots ofdeaf people out there never heard a racingcar in their lives. I've learned to live with it."l do get headaches, but they don'tcome from racing. Mother always had a lotof headaches. Dale's mother has tremen-dous migraine headaches. I don't know ifmine are migraine, but I think my head-aches are inherited."They are hard to live with. I get them sobad that three or four times a year when Idon't have to I won't even get out of bed.When a headache happens during a race,

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"l can still,see the faces peering in at methrough the window every time we sloweddown. lwaved my foot at them to let themknow lwas all right. The next thing I knowthey're rushing me into the emergencyroom in the hospital and some gal is holler-ing that they can't take me in there until Iwas signed up and the doctor is holleringthat he'd fill out those fool forms later."They just threw me on a table and X-rayed me from head to toe. All they foundwas that shoulder injury. A bone that holdsit in place had broken and there was awhole bunch of them trying to get it backinto place. They was a pushin' and a shovin'and it hurt so they had to hold them down.I heard one say, 'Man, it won't go in.' Andanother one said, 'lt will if we shove harder.'"One gave a pull and one gave a shoveand I came about a foot off the table andblacked out again."They fixed me as fast as they could andSEPTEMBER T977

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l'll take a couple of aspirin at a time to ease to happen, it's going to happen at topthe pain. l'll wind up taking 10 or 12 as- speed.pirins in a period of three or four hours and "After a race, I may be worn to the bone,that has to be hard on your stomach. but I'm not wound up or anything. After aI get upset stomachs from the aspirin so race, I relax, win or lose. But, of course, II take Di-Gel pills to soothe my stomach. I feel better if lwin.guess it takes my appetite away because | "Driving is what I do. I don't even thinkdon't feel like eating later. But then I don't about accidents. When a baseball batter isfeel like eating earlier, either. I just don't standing at the plate, is he thinking aboutlike to eat a lot. Food doesn't mean that getting hit in the head with a pitch? Whenmuch to me. A hot dog and a Coke are fine a race driver is racing he is not thinkingas far as I'm concerned. I don't drink whis- about wrecking. When I'm racing, I'm think-key or even beer except seldom and I don't ing of how I can win. I'm an addict aboutsmoke except for my cigars. winning. I'm hooked on it. I'm anxious"l did get gassed back in 1966 and for a about it, but I try to keep the neruous ten-year or two it really bothered me. The doc- sion at bay because it can drain you fastertors said it takes six months or so to get than anything. Worrying can get you tiredthat stuff out of your system, but it took me before you turn a wheel.three or four times as long because I con- "l don't want to die. I'd like to live for-stantly was exposed to it. We used to get a ever. I know I can't. When my time comes, itlot of carbon monoxide coming into the will come. lt may or may not be in racing.cockpit and three or fourtimes lhad to quit Most drivers don't die in racing, you know.races because of it. lt just made me sick to I'm not going to worry about it. lf we pre-my stomach. But they construct the cars pare properly, we reduce our risks of acci-better in recent years and that stuff doesn't dents. I'm not going to wait for them. Whenget through and it's not a problem any they come, they come unexpectedly."more."A lot of heat builds up in the cockpits. .l.HEY RACED FOR 9200,000 in the Wins-You lose a lot of weight in a hard race and it I ton 500 at Talladega, Alabama, on thetakes a lot out of you. I sweat a lot and take second of May, 1975, the prize was secondsalt pills to make up for it. A couple of times only to the eailier Daytona 500 in NASCARI had to quit races, lwas so tired. Alldrivers Grand National hisiory. As the leadersdo at times. Sometimes it gets to you morg charged around the spriwling 2.6-mile lay-than other times. But most times I don't outaispeedsof closeto200milesperhour,feel it 'tilthe race is over. Maybe forthe first there was one mishap after another.time I realize I have to go to the bathroom After leading the first three laps, Donniebad. You don't think about it when you're Allison's Chevy blew an engine, spewing oilconcentrating on the race. on the oval. Blnny parson-s' Chevy sliJ on"l believe in mind over matter. Most of the slick surface into a wall. Two lesserthe time I won't give in to being tired. I drivers also slid and wrecked. Cale yarbor-won't even let my body know it's tired. ouqhcharoedhisChevellefromfarbacktoWhen I relax and let down later, that's neir the f-ront until the front windshieldsomething else." twisted out. Bobby Allison led a lap beforelN THE MOST EXCITING RACING in the Richard rejects the notion his age is be- his Matador en!ine broke. Defendingworld, Petty is one of the acknowledged ginning to 96 against him. "Most Iop driv- j.ii"""p"ii, SOO dnampion Gordon Johnlmasters of the super-tracks' Emil 6rs reain tlieir feak in their 30s. The thing ;";k ;;ii;;J ;hilhG inery engine failed.schanzenback Photo' people don't think about is we have no Ramo Stott's chevy blew an engine,Little League or high school or college car dumping oil on the track. Country singing..1 dcn't hear I3:iH 'l\,?,''..i.1i"i"1j' :1,*"Y:'i'"ijf'l ;E'#Xtv"i?'il:';'li?,1Xffi:lill?.l3xlscod and fhat #5f"ilTn';::lif[:/^""Y,'ililT: R:[[',."S,1X,'i*'l'iiH: tli:?t:'.??".:idcnrr hurr mc In ffi',j:?f jifiiJi:ili,",i[":T,f,i'iJ:i&"J; '"i;:'HJSiTEl;,, accident occurred in1ra3lngf DUt I See lose a little on your reflexes, your experi- the pits and it was truly an accident. A rightgocd and that *,eiJ:3[:,'":?lT;: andthatdon,th,lT ryil !:!?."':X1"fi,ffi::J :?i,,:',i.?: ll:lrelps mGr I have i"'IffI?fi:,'i":.:i3Tfl3,!11^31!1oi'fr? 3ll:3lL:::13*T:#"?:,fl'"J;,:H:,'f i:,l;bursrandlns *f,[i,'i?"'ffil""TT:iT;iT'"lH?:l ff,?,fl,3#:l;.ib"fiiitrf,'Xn"lf,13i?ffi':C;lCglghe end I but I'm wlry and strong enough to do the pressurized tank, and it exploded. The bot-

ehtntr rh;i?il;; ifl3i i,[3il,,1"?i.1"-,i""]i1,"'L1i;J.fi,lJ"Ti :"# ;:i:"JftilH:il?"?::l1iiill]f.iJ,""'Jslnglc mcse .n:l?3iffi'lTffi:['rv#ooing and some- [:;:li"o#".fi,f ilT3:;Ttiffi':i"il!lmpcrfant ehlng ll?-tnso*"i?j. to so out or me when I can't i"";* ;';:ff:lf;inifnk narrowrv miss-an aehhte canhaYC.ttNO MATTER WHAT SHAPE the car's in orhow accomplished the driver, this record isonly as good as his crew allows it to be, andPetty has one of the top crews in any form ofracing. Harry Reiter Photo.

"l look forward to every race. Before arace, I'm relaxed. Ten minutes before arace, you can talk to me about anything.The crew is cutting up, it doesn't bother mea bit. During the race, they tense up morethan I do. I'm busy doing my job."The short race is tough physically be-cause you're always in traffic and turning.The long race is tough mentally because,while you can relax in the long straights,you have to stay alert. lf anything is going

Most of the crews had similar tanks,which are supposed to operate with 20pounds of pressure and are used primarilyto put water into radiators and to wash gas-oline and oil off the sides of the cars andthe ground around the pits. Apparently,the pressure had built up past the point oftolerance. When the 21-year-old Owens,Lynda Petty's brother and the marriedfather of two young sons, went to use it, ittore apart. The sound of it startled every-STOCK CAR RAC]NG

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one, a piece of shrapnel f rom it cut the headof Gary Rogers in BennY Parsons' Pitnearby, and everyone around it was leftstunned by the sudden expectedness of it.Richard jumped to the pit wall to call forhelp, but it was too late."tt was just a freak thing," Richard says,sadly. "lt happened right in front of me andI knew he was a goner the instant it hap-pened. I don't know how you know thosethings, you just know. lt was so quick it washard to believe, a little like lightning hittinga boy in the field. Then came the hard part,having to tell Lynda. But by the time I got toher, she already knew. She had a bad feel-ing about this race and didn't come. Shewasn't even listening to the radio, but ourgirls were and they were the ones brokethe news to her. But they didn't know howhe was, so Lynda and Mom called the hos-pital and got the bad word."He just loved racing and being aroundus and he'd been working with us at onething or another since he was 16. He was inthis because of me and I felt real bao aboutit as if maybe it should have been me. Wewere running with the leaders, but therewas no thought of running any more that

day. We just packed everything up and left.I went to the airport with my friend BillFrazier,'The Reverend of Racing,' to ac-company Randy's body back home."At Alabama lnternational Motor Speed-way, the race went on. Buddy Baker andDavid Pearson duelled for the lead throughthe last 100 miles. Pearson drafted Bakerthrough the last lap and tried to sling-shotaround him coming off the last turn, butBaker kept his Ford in front to the check-ered flag. Pearson put his Mercury almosteven as the two d rove almost abreast acrossthe finish line.It was Pearson's th i rd second-place f in ishof the season, and David admitted he wasdepressed afterwards. Baker was elated bycontrast with his first victory in three years."lt's the happiest I've felt in 15 years," he

said. Bud Moore, his car owner, also wasSEPTEMBER T977

satisfied. "We've worked and waited a longtime," he sighed. Though well-known andwell-regarded, this was his first victory inmore than 10 years.They did not mention the accident thatfatally injured Randy Owens because thatwas not their problem, but their crews con-ceded they would be keeping a closerwatch on those water tanks in the future.Meanwhile, Richard Petty was on his wayhome with Randy. Despite this setback, thePetty STP team completed the first third ofthe campaign, the first phase of the Win-ston points series, more than 200 points infront, worth $10,000 to Richard.He was not thinking of that when theyburied Randy on Tuesday with his wife, Jan,weeping. Their sons, Travis, 2, and Trent, 1,were too young to know what had haP-pened. But, while racing pauses to bury itsdead, when that deed is done, it goes on.Racing is a business, like any other busi-ness. Richard Petty says he did not eventhink of the next race until someone said,"Let's go," and then they just began to getready to go, preparing their short-track carfor the Music City 400 on the half-mile atthe Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway the

following SaturdayHere, where MartY Robbins had madebig money as a singer, he ended his careeras a racer, at least for the time being. He'dhad accidents in three straight races andsaid, "l think that's enough for now. lt's funracing, but not crashing. After this last mis-hap I was so shook when I got out of thecar I sang a few bars of 'El Paso' just to seeif I could remember how." His countrymusic could be heard in the cars and bars,homes and motels of this Tennessee townas the other racers resumed.The Petty team had prepared their carand took it on the long drive to Nashvillewith as few words as possible. "There wasthe sound of silence around us," Richardremarks. Arriving, he asked the track oper-ator, Bill Donoho, to ask his friends of thepress not to ask him about the awful acci-

dent of the previous Sunday for awhile, andthey agreed and did not bother Richard."We had to reach down into ourselvesand try to charge ourselves back up." Pettyqualified his car fourth fastest for the raceand was second in the race until his Dodgedeveloped carburetor trouble. He lost 21laps on a seven-minute pit-stop for repairsand after that he just ran for points.Darrell Waltrip from Franklin, Tennessee,who had been coming closer and closer tovictory ci rcle week after week, f i nal ly landedthere in this home-state event, earning$6,500 for winning by two laps. After fouryears on the tour, it was his first triumph'"l expected to win one a lot sooner thanthis. i expect to win a lot more from nowon. lt's time the Pettys moved over," hesaid. Petty pocketed $1,350 for finishingseventh and left quietly with his brother,cousin and the rest of his crew. "We no-ticed someone missing," he said. "Likehaving an empty chair at the table."THE FOLLOWING WEEK was worse.I Work on the car did not go well. Thenthere was the long drive to Dover, Dela-ware, for the Mason-Dixon 500 on Sunday.The race, itself, 500 one-mile laps on thisoblong layout, is one of the harder ones oncars. The Pettys could not get their car tohandling right, encountered tire troubleand fell a lap back as the event startedunder dark clouds and was stopped in adownpour short of the halfway mark, whichwould have made it officially complete.The race was resumed the followingmorning and when Dean Dalton's Fordblew a tire and spun in front of him, Pettydrove his Dodge right into him. Richardremained in the race, finishing third, tenlaps back. "lt was just terrible. I was out-drove. Then I hit someone I should havemissed," Petty admitted later.Cecil Gordon finished second, six lapsback, and was ecstatic. "ltwas beautiful, mybest finish ever," he beamed. Making tenshort stops under rainy, slowdown condi-tionsto remove and replace a broken shockabsorber on Sunday, David Pearson wenton to win the race and $14,925 on Monday."lt's about time we won one," David said."But the Woods won this one more thanme." lt was their first win in seven months.'IIHROUGH THE NEXT WEEK Petty teamI members said to one another that iwas time to get back to business. "We hadto get our heads screwed on straight again.What's past was past. We couldn't broodaway the future," Richard remarks. Theywere ready when they took their car on theshort drive to Charlotte Motor SpeedwayRichard was weary of hearing how he hadyet to win here in 16 years of trying, but heblew and had to replace an engine in practice this year.Outside of the endurance events, theWorld 600 is the longest major race in thissport. lt's 400 times around the 1%-miletrack, a tremendous test of men andmachinery. On race day, on the final Sunday in May, a heavily hot and humid day, iwas a tougher test than usual. The Pettysmet the test.Pearson qualified fastest at almost 160miles per hour, but Petty put his STP Dodgeinto the third starting spot. As 90,000 fansContinued on Page 757

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lltng RlChafd continued rrom pase s7f illed the grandstands and grounds on raceday, Pearson, Petty and Cale Yarboroughdominated theearly running of the $175,000event in 90 degree temperatures thatreached 140 degrees at track level.Pearson eventually lost time replacingcut tires and later admitted, ':We was justout for a Sunday drive after that." Petty losttime with rubber tearing off his tires andfell a lap back in the first half, but wouldn'tgive up. "We wanted this one. We spent sornuch time replacing our blown engineand breaking in a new one, we had to sortout the chassis during the race. I got side-ways and thought my right-side tires hadflatted, but when we replaced them wedidn't find anything there. When I cameback in to replace left-side tires ive foundthem chunking up. We were running tooloose and had to put more weight on theleft side."Once we made the chassis adjustment,we had found the right combination. ldon'tthink our car was the fastest, but it's been along time since I could out-handle theothers the way I could in this one. I couldrun well anywhere I wanted."l made up my lap and caught Cale.Once I passed him, I went on to put a lap onhim.That gave me the margin to put on fournew tires every stop and I could run fasteryet. My crew made real fast pit stops. Oncethe track got slippery, Cale couldn't keepup with me."While Tom Sneva was crashing in a fierywreck and Bobby Unser was winning theIndianapolis 500, Richard Petty was win-ning the World 600.Cale led seven times for about 225 miles.Richard led six times for about 350 miles,including the last 100 miles. He won byabouttwo miles. He hugged Lynda and theyhad big grins on their faces as they stood inVictory Lane and he waved to the crowd.The only driver in the race using one ofthe new helmets in which ice water is cir-culated to keep the driver cool, Richard in-sisted this one was so easy he would havewon without that help. "lt's just one of our$3,000 added attractions," he laughec.While the other drivers were dragging in,sweat-soaked and we.ary from the swelter-ing, long afternoon, Petty hopped on thehood of his car and stood alongside therace queen receiving the cheers in front ofan ermous laurel wreath.Cale came in to his pit and pushed him-self out of his car. "Lordy it's hot," he said."somebody thr:ow me a wet cloth."Someonethrew him a cloth, which turnedoutto be wet with gasoline instead of water.After rubbing it on his face, Cale threw itaway angrily. "What's going on here?Somebody is trying to turn me into a humantorch. Dumb, dumb," he muttered, stalking

tor $27,290, which put him within $60,000of the two-million-dollar mark in careerearnings.Someone pointed out this was his 13thstart, but a lucky one, his sixth win of theseason. Someone else asked him aboutthe jinx that had hounded him here."There's no such thing as a jinx," Richardsaid. "lf we could win at other tracks, wecould win here. We knew if we worked at it,we'd win here. We didn't do anything dif-ferent we didn't do here before or else-where. We've had bad breaks before, butthis time the bad breaks went to othersand the good breaks went to us."There's an element of luck in racing.You can't predict where a part will break.A lot of parts broke for us at Charlotte thatdidn't break at Daytona. lt's no bigger dealto win here than anywhere else, exceptthat I think this 600 is a bigger race than theSouthern 500 or any race outside of theDaytona 500."The Petty team has won this race herebefore. We won with Jim Paschal in 1964and Marvin Panch in '66 and Paschalagainin '67, but I know it didn't mean as much tothe team as when I'm driving. They wereaggravated by my losing here and theywanted me to win here so much they workedharder at it than usual. "The crew won forme as much as I did, or more."Part of this prize money was paid him insilverdollars. He had them engraved "Char-lotte World 600 Victory, 1975" and handedthem out to his teammates, who treasuredthem far beyond their real value. "A thou-sand bucks wouldn't mean as much to me,"said one of them, who was proudly display-ing his for months afterwards hAl StlllcyContinued f rom page 16keep out of everybody's way and still learna lot about racing."Housby apparently learned fast. He wasonly 10 laps off the pace.The stop at Texas for USAC's only 500-miler of the year marked the third race onthe 1977 calendar. Hopefully, it will becomean annual stop, too.The 1977 Texas 500 accomplished much.It established Feldner as a title-threat. ltmade Darnell a winner.And it proved again that the man to beatif you want to win is A. J. Foyt-no matterwhat kind of race it is.It also left the USAC stock car divisionwith a winnerwho cried atthefinish. Darnellhad good reason to shed a few tears. Afterall, he won his first superspeedway raceand he beat Foyt-all in thesameafternoon

"We are gonna try to make the rest of thesuperspeedway modified races this year.Hopefully we'll be more prepared for therest of them, and they won't throw bad luckand rain at us." He laughed briefly, a littlehollow. "And maybe we'll find some money

hway.After a cooling shower, he came out to RlCh BenyOsay, "The man who invented a 600-mile raceought to be hung on the square in uptownCharlotte where everybody could see it.This isn't anything but a torture contest."An hour later, Petty was still talking tothe reporters in the press box. relaxed andready to celebrate. "Usually I'm tired aftera race, but I don't feel tired at all. he said."l'm just enjoying this," He held a check

Continued f rom page 11

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