Petty Blue - Richard Petty Story | Fence Armor

With the permission of the Petty family, we were honored to be able to share with you on our channel the legacy of Richard Petty and his

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. We thought it was important that not many people knew about it and why we, as guards, are so proud to be part of the

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family and the sponsors who at ARCA enjoy the film and thank you for watching it there is one of the great masters of this part

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from dirt track to super tracks there wasn't a race

richard

petty couldn't win richard was from nascar the first hero and the pettys were his first family, a racing empire that spanned generations.

Neither has more wins, nor more championships, but success is difficult to sustain and, sooner or later, it would all fade away, while the little name would one day be known around the world. Carolina's hometown did not appear on many maps. Cross Level is a small southern town marked by crossroads and secluded forests, although the world around it has changed life here, during the Great Depression, farmers worked the red clay fields until their hands were stained in the same way. It was a simpler time, but there was nothing simple about their way of life for generations. The local cross is where the little family has called home.

I didn't have electricity or phones, you know, there was no communications because you had as much as a neighbor with two single beds until I actually got married and I was 21 or 22, so we say we grew up together, we definitely grew up together, my mother and my father They were very strict, they had certain rules, we knew what the rules were and if you broke them, you were left speechless. It's not ideal who was abused anyway, I was always abused, but we weren't, I would describe them as quite strict parents, very levin, but it wasn't as shown with my dad, he was just a hot-rodder, okay, and he had a couple of trucks he made a lot of trucks sometimes he raised some pigs and sometimes he grew tomatoes in the summer, you know, everything went down a little bit, everyone at that particular time was just trying to get along, no one was trying to get ahead and just trying to make a living One way to make a living was to make moonshine and easily distilled corn whiskey, which has been a staple of Southern life since the Civil War.

Moonshine brokers could earn more on a single transport than farmers made in a month, but getting it to customers was risky business. Government tax agents patrolled the back roads so smugglers drove rebuilt cars to leave them behind. They drove for the money Lee petty drove to feed his family he held her there's no two ways about it mom and Richard I many times We can travel but he moved one night he might even fall and then even after that, We had to go to the movies, so my grandfather and a group of my uncles and things they had from some robberies also did a little smuggling. you know and you didn't think about it because it was just a way of life at the level crossing the whole neighborhood made liquor and they sold it and if you didn't you would be left hungry I'm sure these liquor necklaces that everyone got together and They all boasted about how fast their car was and they used to race them on the road for a lot of money because they would work on their cars and dress them up so they could escape the law, then they would calm them down and get them going each. others on these little tracks or whatever it was not what the sport looked like, it was looked down through the sport, the people in our community and the people who want to go to school with us are more looking for a deal, they are just a group of smugglers, okay, just a group of outlaws want people you wanted to invite to Sunday dinner.

I don't think racing was a rowdy bunch, good guys who wanted to have a good time, but stock car racing wasn't organized until a part-time driver named the great Bill France headed up a new organization, the National Racing Association. stock car racing, NASCAR turned the races into a series and gave drivers the opportunity to compete for a living. It was the opportunity Lee had been waiting for. His experience as moonshine making everyday cars faster led to quick success. Now we have a battle for the lead between Tim Clark in 91 and the lead, lumbering and sleepy. I always looked at him.

He's probably the smartest driver I've ever seen because one week he ran hard and the next week he didn't. he raced hard but it was both weekends he drove for a living he didn't drive for anyone else he knew if he didn't finish that race then we couldn't move on to the next race oh we had to win yes we did we go to the race track and We're looking to have enough food and enough guys to get to the race track, that's the truth, we drove the race car to the race track. I drove a race car always close to the California pace.

I drove it to New York. In Canada we didn't have any luxury. I guess he was one of the first to make a living, especially for his family, racing and when he decided to do it, he just got on with it and made it work. When my dad worked on a race car we were there, what happened to him? Dale came and went to help us. He was almost like a third brother. I was the only kid in school who went home and didn't work on the farm. I was. at home working on the racetrack I was building the engines on the track doing the back end stuff doing the bodywork you know I mean painting the car or welding the car building whatever dad they were very strict , I mean, you know, you know. walk down the line and they talked, you listened, he didn't think about anything because he grew up in the depression, he grew up in hard times and everyone took everything they could get, he was hard on Marcy and Richard, very hard on them and his mother trying To continue.

The middle ground, you know, but he was tough and he liked being Mr. The name tough is a dirty racist, he'll appreciate it, but these guys gave me the name. I would have been in two dogs in '57 when I told you we all lived together in the family that didn't include Lipe, he didn't stay with Lee. I don't drink with I don't think the leader was late, at least he certainly didn't shake like we did, so socially we were never together, he was a family man, there were many in those types of races that maybe they came to. party and they simply have no trace and they would direct it I asked him and his family were among the leaders in helping to change the image of the sport from its original origin we present a family type image and his family was always with him at the races, his wife prepared lunch and he would send it with them to the racetrack, we would take it to the racetrack, so it was a total family effort.

She was very supportive of my father no matter what he did, whether it was farming. or do legal or illegal things, she agreed to whatever the program was when dad, mom and Richard, myself, expected us to always stay behind, he had a trailer, he would hitch it up behind and we would go, we would go to Charlotte or Richmond. or we ended up going to Pennsylvania, you know, I said, man, you know, these people have paved roads and electricity and you know all this kind of stuff, so it really opened up our world in just a couple of three years.

Being very backwards to see the real world during my school years. I never thought about driving a racing car. I said, you know, hey, my dad drives, he'll drive forever and I never thought about him not driving, so he wanted to be the crew chief. my dad's car and then when I was 18 I said hey Devin you know they have some of these guys he's 18 19 so I want to drive a race car and he looked at me and said come back when you're 21". I said you'd learn a lot from the time you're 18 - you're 21 young Richard Petty can only wait and wait and wait after I get out of school, so that's some kind of hot rodder who had a hot rod car I ran from one side On the other side of the road, my brother went with this code and his girlfriend and Linda were cheerleaders and I went to all the games and one night Richard jumped in the car and said: I'm going with Mars to take you hunting. "Everyone at home, I think a little girl died sparkling here somewhere and I think she had a boyfriend, you know, I mean, and it just happened that he was getting close to me, but I was very wary of him being a older guy, you know, but it didn't take me long to think he was a super nice guy.

A lot of times we go to a drive-in to get something to eat and he's like whatever you want to eat, just order it, oh my gosh, the burgers always. They were delicious, they just worked and it was just a deal after a while, then we became a couple. I was going to get married when I got out of school and he told me one day, he said, I need to go ahead and get married because I'm going to start dating. compete and I'll be gone a lot and I want you to be my partner and she said, okay, she's 17, you don't mean she's still in high school, so she's Okay, let's do this.

I knew in my prime that. It wasn't the right thing for me at the time, but anyway we eventually ran away and got married and I told him. I said, "You know," I said, "You have to remember this." I said racing is number one, but if you try hard one day you can be number two. She looks back. She is that man. Was she innocent? I was young and stupid and I said, "Oh, I'll be happy being number two. So that's where I've been my whole life, it's number two right before I was 21. I went to my dad and said okay." , I want to drive a racing car.

Well, he said there is a car on the corner. I was a novice on country roads. I have never been in a racing car with a helmet and a seat belt, I had tried racing, it was. a challenge to do something on your own and without any help, okay, they give you a car, they give you a steering wheel, so it's your responsibility you're one hundred percent you can brake you can step on the accelerator you can turn left you can turn right. I guess I felt like I had more control over what I wanted to do and what I could do than at any other time in my life, you know, when we started running, my dad was at the top of the pile and I was at the bottom of the pile, I don't know, we had half a dozen races or something like that where we raced together and when our wife was 150 Mile Race at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, we go all day and the place is very dusty and dirty.

They warned me of winter. He had never won a race. Well, this is a great man. Someone comes up and says, "Hey, someone protested the race." I said, what did we do wrong? I said, well, they think they've been around more than you and they turned around. Ernie was my dad. Richard's mother wrote down her dad's car, and sure enough, when they came back and checked again, they found out that it was Richards' dad. He won the race that Richard didn't win and Richard was so upset with his dad. I mean, it was a win for him, it was really a shock, I would have given Richard a chance to win so early in his career and yet his father said no, you didn't win, I did and when you look at it from the father and son point of view you say, well, you know you want your son to do better than you, but at the same time you want to be fair. it was Petty's this was the cost of racing this was how Lee had become a two-time champion no one had won more races he was their first sports king but in 1959 a new era and NASCAR had begun with concrete curves three times higher than Petty's Back home, Daytona International Speedway offered unbridled horsepower like nothing the world had ever seen coming through the tunnel, and here, a 21-year-old walking in without seeing the racetrack, looks like he was 15 miles away. until the first and second corner, which was a big madness, what the hell is it?

You know, he was just a monster. He scared the hell out of me. I'll turn it off and then don't scare me. He scared everyone who came down that tunnel we've been running half of. a quarter mile and maybe a mile track now, and we look up and we see this monitor, you know what I mean and how people's eyes were popping out of their heads, so I said well, I said myself that those boys don't have any more. experience in this race car than I have so I said I'll just go in there and ran wide open that's what I did and the first 500 Li state ton and Johnny Beauchamp went neck and neck towards the checkered flag immediately after the race Beauchamp was declared the winner Lee protested that photo taken at the finish line would take three days to develop Wednesday covers reveal defending NASCAR champion was first Daytona 500 champion two years later, father and My son had returned to reconquer Daytona, but the track of the family's greatest triumphs became the site of the catastrophe.

I got into an accident and went through the first corner. I got off the ship just as it was leaving the infirmary. They said Lee PD had just gone through turn three. and four of us walked when we got to the hospital they said: we don't believe his babies won't live, they said it will be touch and wait, and to talk to him he was half conscious and cut into all the pieces. perforated lung everywherefaded quickly, that's Charlotte Maurice's driving force. - drove 43:2 there 198th when, but post-race inspection would reveal an illegal engine, who knew what wasn't important, hi

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would remember that the team had cheated, it was bad, I mean, we never wanted to cheat Mars, he was the great person he was. a scapegoat for the whole deal I had to do it I was the guy who made the decision this is what's going to happen this is how we're going to do it the good point that's why I dragged Richard through the mud Hindman Mars had a few others differences after that, but he just felt like it was time for Mars to get out of small business, you know, I mean Danielle, like I'm saying it didn't hurt, but you know that's what you went through and that's the path that I went through. they marked.

I still love my brother. I don't think I'm opposed to him. The little racing dynasty that originated in North Carolina was never routine, it was a family. Now America's first racing family is dissolving as the breakup occurs. The patriarch of the Lee clan. Petty hones his golf game in the front yard and faces the question of why it's not possible for things today to be like yesterday and there's no way for tomorrow to be the way it is today the future is Kyle, too bad, as if Richard fate would have taken him. The whistle's over, it's time for Kyle, too bad, to start on that line to take over for Richard Pick.

One of us would have to go, or Richard Petty would have to go and figure out that he was going to have to go after the company to survive. We're not going to be able to generate the income we needed to run two cars and it just wasn't going to work. I said okay, best we could do if we moved out of here to get sponsorship for Kyle's car and Well, let him drive his thing. I would say that Kyle is going to come out worse this time because he has a long way to go and a lot to learn at the end of the year and things aren't going well.

Well, Kyle can say, well, Uncle Marce, it's your father, dad, it's your fault. yours, it can be anyone's fault, but there are lots because the lots run the show initially. The plan was that I was going to run a one-car team and that worked out pretty well for maybe about a month. to 45 days and then no one liked what he was doing, so the King stuck his nose into it again and wanted to leave, but he didn't want to let it go and probably put too much pressure on Kyle because Kyle was trying to be a car owner. car, mechanic, driver and businessman, is one of the shortcomings that Richard Katie had.

And he denied his resignation. You know, they didn't put all of my time into my effort and my sponsorship just on the one car with Kyle. I didn't do that and it was probably a greedy deal on my part because I was still enjoying what I was doing with Petty Enterprises reduced to one car, but the team continued in a constant and relentless decline. Richard had left a level cross shop taking his sponsorship and number for a new team while the king did not run like before he did start to run better winning his 199th race it was already the most in NASCAR history when number 200 would be a historic milestone was the 4th of July the president was there it was like we had to write the script, it couldn't have been different, gentlemen, start your engines keeping your leadership inside, that day brought one of the toughest competitors that ever fired and that he was killing Auburn and Kale. he was dying to win that race said patty in the fog in car 28 now this could be the race we're watching here while they get in traffic it's richard dad for a foot petit winces in pain 200 win in nascar we ended up winning the to an honest race and to test the president of the United States and you, Lila, I mean, you know who is going to believe this garbage, you know, 200 is very, very important, but given the circumstances with all the presidents that have been in the America, this is the first one that showed up on the race track, so everyone has a gun of a race and they stand up and I'm not the one who can welcome you to the Grand National race, they closed the garage area and we had a picnic which was great, I mean all these people never saw the president or whatever is best with him, we were sitting next to the president and we were eating Kentucky Fried Chicken and it was just one of those days where you think this came . because it's just been a great day, a great day, then a number of things happened over the years that seemed to take the sport to another level and that was one of us in some of the races.

I look back and said, man, we should have done this. You won this race, we'll give this one away, but for the two hundred to come out, then you lose all the other places or whatever it had to be for Faith to put you there on the 4th of July in front of the president. Richard would compete for eight more years, but his 200th victory would be his last trip to Victory Lane. Then in 1985, Kyle left Petty Enterprises to drive for another team, which turned out to be the fresh start he needed away from the family business.

Kyle finally had the chance to forge his own identity, he couldn't be his own person and do his own thing if he refused to sign an autograph, it was people saying well he's not like his dad, that doesn't bother him because he's not I want to be like his dad, I didn't want to be a clone of my dad either, okay, so I understood where he was coming from, that was one of the reasons you saw Kyle with long hair earrings, you know, doing everything different than what his father did. made it Kyle Petty wasn't Richard Petty's son it was Kyle Petty here's a man drives a Thunderbird at 240 miles an hour please welcome you have a record deal Hey well that's just his difference he wants to be different you Never would say to Richard Petty with a long ponytail.

Hello, what are you doing there? He just wants his own identity and I think whenever you have a father who is successful at anything and he has a son, that son has a lot of expectations, so I've grieved that part of Kyle. It took six years for Kyle to win his first Cup race. Over the next six seasons he won four more. Should have been considered a solid career for anyone other than the son of the king in small business, Richard and Dale Inman reunited, but there was no way to recover from the past race, race after race, season after season, the team continued ending out of contention, the Kings' reign had long ended on the court, no one feared them, instead, they began to fear for him, is that the battered remnant of Richard Petty. car here this afternoon Richard Petty is still looking for his 201st career victory a long time ago since number 200.

I never dreamed that Richard Petty wasn't in a race car. Did he drive longer than he should? And you know, I don't know. I thought he would just run for every waste. There were some people who thought he should hang it. You always hear that people tend to remember you for the last thing you did and you don't want to be remembered. Like an ex, he would sometimes make me very angry and I would say: have you thought about leaving him? Have you thought about getting out of this? and he said no, no, he hadn't thought about it, there was no way she was going to leave. to try to convince me to quit if I wasn't ready because I've never been happy with quitting if I hadn't done it myself, the older I got the more my mother worried about it, she always felt like you could, you could.

She only tempted fate so many times and then something would happen. He arrives here again when a car stopped at the pit road entrance. His car is really totaled. I heard the announcer just yell. "Richard Petty is flipping, flipping," so I'm walking to the Infirmary and the minister came to the door and said, "Come on, Linda, it's okay." When we walked in, there was CCTV and all I could see on that screen was that car on the

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and I thought they were there. lying to me he's dead he has to be dead I'm lying there looking at the ceiling I hear someone come in she's been crying the accident really looked spectacular and I know it scared the hell out of her and I told her no I even have an idea of ​​how scared I was because I thought that that was the moment you had left after four decades. 1992 would be Richards last season behind the wheel marking his retirement with a farewell tour it was a fitting end for a star who spent his career staying in touch with his fans it was another of those watershed marks that established what a successful athlete does to give back. to those who made it successful, who connected and united the fan with the driver, we did an autograph signing, this guy collapsed. and he cried and cried, he couldn't believe that he was finally going to meet Richard Petty and I think I can't even comprehend that and that's why today, the 4th of July, this president is coming to not only greet the American people and the fans here, but also to this.

The president comes to greet King Richard Petty, one of the great Americans, Richard. I am proud to be one, dear son. It was great to have NASCAR, the fans, the press and everyone support me and it made me feel good to have it recognized and appreciated. What it meant to compete in a championship is at stake here today, but perhaps just as important as the final race is for a guy who started his career in 1958 and has become the king of stock car racing; It's Richard Petty's final race when he taught that race before the last time he said "Honey" because we knew how much he loved it and he was just saying that for us to see it, I have to say "I won't do it again for the rest of my life." ".

The last race we got. in red and they had to rebuild the entire front of the court just so I could say and they could say when he read the last laugh of him, Richard Petty is walking around this track while the fans greet him. I go up and sit in the front of the trailer, okay, here come Amanda, Lisa, Sharon and Rebecca, and they walk in there and they all understand the crime and I start crying. You know, we at the Center cried for about five minutes and then we were happy. They were so excited that it was all over, you know, I mean, so I guess our state after the race they put dad in the back of a convertible and mom was sitting next to him and they did this lap around the track and the look on my mom's face of relief, joy, you know, it was like you finally knew that I don't have to worry about him and we just did it, we did it, we spent our whole lives together forming a family doing something that he loved and the most.

The surprising thing was that it was the best there ever was and ever will be. Richard's final season was, ironically, his son's finest hour in 1992. Kyle finished fifth in points and raced into championship contention, but his success was overshadowed by the Kings' retirement fifteen years and eight wins later. After leaving Kyle he returned to driving for Petty Enterprises, but it was clear that Richard's son would never be king. Nothing he said, he is mine too, he could do it until he decided that he was going to be a racing driver, but he couldn't conquer that racing car that he never conquered. like his dad, he had pure talent and I won't say he was lost, I'll just say he never developed it to the fullest, maybe that's why I never won a hundred races and I never want a ton of championships because I never came to the sport to say I'm going to succeed in sport.

I have to succeed in this sport. I saw the sport a little differently. I grew up in rural North Carolina, where people were dairy farmers and people were tobacco farmers. and there are many farms in my community that are fourth and fifth generation farms from my point of view. I was a third generation farmer growing race cars and my job was to keep the business and Patti's name alive. that policy is because fourth generation Danny, that's Adam, we went to a lot of races together, we traveled a lot with Adam and we went to Daytona, you know we went to Charlotte's, we went to Martinsville, my career was taking shape at the same time as my la family was taking shape and they went as much as they could, there were no buses, there were no planes back then and that was long stretches in a car and then you sat in an interior field in a car without a potty and for me as a wife that is what same as for him it is a lifestyle, you know, when the first grandchild is born, he belongs to everyone, you know that he is all ours, so everyone's world revolved around Adam, you know, everyone did everything for him, you I say it.

If you know that for the first twelve or fourteen years, that was the most annoying kid you ever saw in your life. Hi, my name is Adam Fat, I'm from North Carolina and it depends, it depends on what day he got into it all. just naughty and oh my god I can't even explain it, we all agreed that one of us was killing it before we turned 16, he would try to boss around and be the center of attention, whether it was opening your present at Christmas. when you didn't get a chance to open it or you did something stupid or whatever he was that kind of kid when I look back he never got in trouble it was always enough to make you mad at him well you just wanted to rip his head off .

I think Adam told me one day that he said, "I'm the future of pity and I have bright eyes and I'm going to startlooking for a new job and it was all fun, you know, because he was." Lord, he was such an honorary kid, oh, it was like the most miraculous transformation you'd ever seen in your life. It came one day when I was like 14 or 15 years and said that's it. I want to be a racing driver in his mind there was a focus in his mind there was a purpose and he could see the end result where he wanted to be seventeen years old just graduated from high school he's not earning his first year a trail of history being made tonight Wow and In my opinion, we had gotten to a point where we were more competitive as an organization and all of a sudden here was this 18 year old kid who could be the fire hydrant to put in march penny companies Adam Betty, take care of him, today he is a store in himself.

Running very well, colors number 45, he was granted familiar. I was getting familiar with you Kyle was too and I'm eating a Daytona 500 later. in his career, it wouldn't have been a bigger victory and about that complicated race with him he has tons. City man, he is a much better driver and I once thought he could rival his grandpa at some point, but it's nice to know that someone will win some races that will last for a long time. Petty's future this is his future this boy is exactly like his grandfather he has the same character his grandfather drives like his grandfather this is the future of pity and I always looked out I'm different from how I looked at Kyle because Adam wanted to be a pilot race car, he made the commitment that Adam was going to be what he was when I probably started mentally getting out of a race car and saying, "Okay, it's time for me to get out of a race car because this is the city." of this child, this is Adams.

At that point it was just the natural progression for me to become an owner and him to become a driver. Is your father active in your career? It seems like it's been a lot. He helps me more than anything in the world. You know he's always there. For me, you know, right now he's out there having trouble with his Winston Cup team and he's out here helping us in the market trying to be quick. You know, I have our Winnebago and he has a Holman engine and half the time I never bring mine. I just stay with him and then I stay with him and that's pretty cool because we're like I said, we're best friends on the road and we share a lot together and we have a lot of fun together.

It's another layer to our relationship, I mean, and it's a layer that I think I missed with my father. I never remember leaving the house where my father hugged me and he told me that he loved me, we were not a hugging family and that is the difference. In our relationship, compared to the way I was raised, Richard, he doesn't pat you on the back or congratulate you and that's part of Richard's problem in Thailand, because I think sometimes Cowell expects to get a pat on the wrist. back or having his dad pat him on the back.

Tell him he's done something good, but Richard just won't faint. Praise is very frequent. I was never as close as the two of them this morning, but we didn't have time. I did not have time. So Cowlick said and says yes. It won't happen to me, dear, but it will happen to me and my son. I don't mean this in a bad way, but my father and I are not close friends, he is my father and that's how it is with Adam. I tried to say we'll be friends, okay, I'll always be your dad and I'll be the guy who Spanky and I'll be the guy who disciplines G and I'll be the guy who jumps on you when you do something wrong, but at the same time you should be able to call me when something has happened. in your life or you should be able to talk to me about this or talk about that.

Every kid wants to be like their dad and I grew up watching them race and it's something I always wanted to do and I really can't believe it's happening when I'm 19 years old trying to do my first Winston Cup race, but if we succeed tomorrow and qualify and Do the race, it will be something very special in April 2000, the keys to the family kingdom were passed to a new generation of cheapskates, on his first try he qualified for his first Cup Series race by entering the field, I believe that Adam made history. I was proud to be the first fourth generation professional athlete in the world, I was going to do everything I could to keep that name, the thousands of thousands of people who have played any sport professionally and we were the first family to do something for four generations , I mean something unheard of, I think he was handling it well, it wasn't that I'm a racing driver, I'm going to be a great racing girl, I'm going to make a lot of money, he had a character more like Richard and he was like me .

I just want to run like Grandpa I just want a race It all started with Lee Petty and then it went to Richard and my dad and then to me we're four generations and we're all still alive and we've all done the same thing over a period of 50 years, three days later Before nineteen-year-old Adams began the first Cup Series, the patriarch of the Petit family passed away, and just five weeks after Lee's death, the Petit name would once again be etched in stone in New Hampshire today, fourth generation. . Member of auto racing's most famous family died today in an accident at the track.

Petty, 19, died of head injuries after crashing during practice for a race tomorrow at New Hampshire International Speedway. Adam Petty was the son of current driver Kyle. Petty grandson of Richard and great-grandson of NASCAR pioneer Lee Petty. I was here at the body shop, someone came to get me and said, "Hey, someone needs you on the phone," and Hilton called me and said Adam had just been in a horrible accident. He said no. It doesn't look good and he came in and when he did he said he looked at me and I said Adams was gone and he got on his knees and started crying and said I shouldn't even think about this but he said maybe I should have.

I was just a farmer, we were very close, you know, and we, you know, used to joke about being a father in the south. Ben's friend, it was so true and I hope that all the things that you do in life and pray that no one loses a child, that has to be the worst thing that could happen and what I mean by that is you have a grandfather, you have a father, you are a father and then you have a son. It's supposed to be the older generation that goes first, so when it goes wrong then you start to wonder: what else is wrong in life?

So the darkness comes from the deep loss of losing someone you really love and it was a party. but the darkness also comes from being thrown into a whole new world, we don't know what the rules are. I wish I could give you a magical, mystical, miraculous answer on how to deal with loss, but not everyone deals with it differently. and unfortunately, when you go through what we've been through, you wake up in the morning and you still have to get up and you don't want to, it's very difficult, but you have to make a decision and then you have to work very, very hard. by choosing to be powerful instead of pitiful I initially blamed myself and then I blamed our life and then hopefully one day I got a little note from a lady and a little note said, you know, you never put a question mark where God put a point and that was just that was after I picked everything up for me, I mean, I said, okay, you know it was meant to be, I didn't have much control over it and we would just have to pick everything up from here, there was a We could go either way, we could look at it and feel incredibly bitter that we had lost a child, or we could look at it and say we were so blessed to have Adam for these 19 years, don't say it's over, that's it. the worst news.

I could hear, I swear I'll do my best to be here just the way you like it, even if it's hard, I'll put aside my feelings, rearrange my plans and change for you, I think he saw it the same way he did. . He did that, the last thing in the world that Adam would have wanted to happen is for us to change our lifestyle again when I would go to the race track and get in his car and sit in his seat. I never put my seat in the car. I always drove in his seat I felt closer to him in that car then I felt anywhere else If I could go back That's the first thing I would do I swear I would do everything I could to move forward Come up with a master plan I'm executing a guarantee of victory and not a promise that I will never leave your love.

I can't say I was ever angry and I can respond that very quickly this sport we chose to do this is not something we have to do and these ports have been incredible for us, I mean I look at what my grandfather did while my father was doing life that I drove, the years that Adam drove a car and what he did and how he reacted, look at the joy it brought him, look at the way he did it, look at the way he did it, so to me there's no reason to be angry. I think he was a blessing and everything in his life was a blessing once there was a career full of horsepower and manpower full of championship dreams.

That came to life, but in 2009 Petty Enterprises was no more, after 60 years, the family business closed its doors. It was just a situation we didn't need to be in. You have to be very dedicated to do this kind of work just to see. That the halls of Hollywood are empty is truly heartbreaking, maybe we just failed to keep it alive. I look back and say what we could have done differently to save it. I guess the money just dropped like an egg dropped and I just broke, that's all if you had told me. Fifty years ago this store would have been closed, everything is gone, all our people are gone.

I would have said there is no way we will be here forever. This happened all day and he's gone and that's a terrible way to feel about it, but he's dead and just gone. the name stuck, not Patty Richard Petty, the king took her name for a new team, but the family business disappeared into Richard Petty Motorsports, there was no place for Kyle Petty, that was very, very, very difficult because, you know, he hit on the head. and he said we don't need you and it turned out he didn't need it. He just couldn't afford to keep him.

I know everyone thinks why did he do that to his son 4 and he didn't do it on purpose. I told myself more than a thousand times that I had never done anything to hurt my son, but there was no port I could go to and there aren't many people out there kicking down doors for 50-year-old drivers. I'll never say he was that angry. as I was disappointed in the process but it's part of life and this is a cruel business so let's get together let's be honest at the time our sport has grown to the point where it can be a hard and cold business it's sad to see a company that way.

No longer being here, one that perhaps had more to do with the growth and image of the sport than any other. I always thought it was a little better. Let's see the deal is

blue

, a really nice color. Someone who puts everyone in a pleasant mood. He's not going to stop going to the race, he loves racing and that's a big part of his life, as long as he can get up, be part of a team. I want you to do it. I don't want him to come sit at home. and becoming an old man this is the environment I feel comfortable in maybe I'm afraid to try something else I don't know even though we've had heartbreaks and setbacks in general I don't know of anything we might have The PT family achieved more later of Adams' death.

Kyle and Patti opened Victory Junction Gang Camp, a place where children with chronic illnesses can come to laugh and smile just like Adam once did. We lost one child but we have gained ten thousand children. in the process because in the first five years that's about the number of kids that have come to camp, so what you feel there and what you see on these kids' faces or when they smile you see Adam smile. I think you get that same smile and that same glow. in the eyes of these children because here they are doing something that perhaps they never dreamed they could do in their lives.

It's an incredible place. It's right below the race shop where Petty Enterprises started. It's the same soil we raise racing cars with. in just we're changing the kids in that now it still hurts I still cry every day I'm not over it how is my favorite so we look like martyrs that we were able to deal with his loss and get over it And it goes on, it's not like that, we have been very blessed by having had the opportunity to be able to take that pain and use it for good when I see some of the things that he has done and the strength and courage that he has had.

To go on, I have to admire him for that because it would have been easy to throw in the towel and move on and let his life fall apart. I think when you look at my grandfather's career, all the races he won. my father's career and the races and the championships that they won, when you look at the races that I won and the things that I did, when you look at what Adam did and you put it in a pile, it makes a pretty big pop, but I think final when you look at the legacy of what this family has meant to this sport.

I don't think you look at that as much as you look at the camp and you look at that camp and say, look at what these kids have gone on to do some of these kids can become doctors and cure the disease that they have some of these kids can become teachers. some of these children may becomesome of the best parents and raising the future leaders of this country and I think when you look at it, this and the scheme of life that I know now is so much bigger than what I thought life was like before the Adams accident.

I don't know if Richard Peddie ever will. Being known is the best driver ever, that's material and one thing he always said was look at everything we have, we have each other, our kids, our home, what more would you want in this life? that and you made a dent, but it's such a small dent in the world, so I always look at it from the point of view that, whether you remember the compassionate family and the good, bad or indifferent, at least you remember them , so that's all you can do. question I think someone offered him a ride tomorrow he would go out but I would probably hit him on the head first you have to take this bag you don't charge so he carries a bag can you say that a minute wait a minute? tiny beads I stole my purse I don't care, I told her, I said, I don't care who's in the winner's circle, who you have to hug or kiss, it's who you take home and that's me, how's Linda, there will be other records than her on vacation, so when I left this morning, she will get tougher when I get angry about the food, he wears idiot sunglasses, that person doesn't use his camera, you too sir, that's because I secretly think he has his eyes closed at some point.

I know he's the king of NASCAR. that's like his little nickname, he's a NASCAR legend when you hear NASCAR, that's what you should think about because he's the one who started every American icon, today we're also joined by NASCAR's all-time greats, King Richard. I keep thinking, I wonder what. My life would have been like I could have married someone who just lived a normal life. I could have had a normal family doing normal things and I wouldn't have all the stress of him and he tells me yes, but he wouldn't have been as entertaining.