- People say the most American things
are baseball and apple pie. (popping into existence)
Well newsflash homie!
Apple pie was invented in England and baseball is boring.
So what is the most American thing?
Freaking NASCAR man!
- This is Get Up To Speed, you gonna find out
everything you don't wanna know about Richard Petty.
- The most winningest man of them all,
the king himself,
Richard Petty!
(arcade music)
NASCAR is one of America's oldest racing series,
and stock cars are America's largest contribution
to motor sports worldwide.
This sport is undeniably American.
We invented ovals so fans could watch an entire race.
Over NASCAR's 70-year history, there's one driver
who stands tall above the rest.
Even if you've never seen a race,
you've seen this guy and you know his name.
Richard Petty, AKA The King.
Won the NASCAR championship seven times,
a feat shared by only two other drivers,
Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson.
What separates Petty from those guys though,
is his astonishing 200-win record.
The next closest driver, David Pearson has 105.
Richard Petty is one of the most
respected drivers in the world,
and was one of the first drivers
inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
You cannot talk about racing, let alone stock car racing
without talking about Richard Petty.
Richard Petty was born on July 2nd 1937
in Level Cross, North Cackalacky.
His dad was Lee Petty, a dude who really loved racing.
Lee's first win came at Heidelberg Raceway in Pittsburgh,
and that was just the beginning.
In 1959 he drove in the very first Daytona 500.
On the last lap, Lee and two other drivers
crossed the finish line at the same time,
with Lee judged as coming in second.
But Lee saw it differently, he claimed
he was two feet in front of the winter
and demanded that NASCAR review the footage.
It took three days,
but Lee was finally declared the real winner.
Lee won three NASCAR championships over his career,
earning the Petty family a place
in the NASCAR pantheon of greats.
If it wasn't clear by now,
racing was in Petty's blood,
and that included young Richard.
Richard had been helping his dad out with the race team,
driving parts and cars wherever they needed to go.
Kinda like how I make Nolan deliver me
a case of sparkling water to my desk whenever I get thirsty,
and boy do I get thirsty.
Anyway, Richard was getting a little antsy.
He was tired of doin' the legwork
and wanted to get behind the wheel.
Lee said, okay.
But Richard would have to promise to wait until he was 21.
Then, they would see.
Because he wasn't yet racing,
the young Richard had time to cruise around town
in his '56 Dodge that he'd lowered
and strapped on some big wheels and tires.
Under the hood, rumbled a '57 Oldsmobile Engine,
with three carburetors!
And that, fed into an exhaust with no muffler.
This guy was doing muffler deletes
before the term muffler delete was a thing.
These big old cars used to come with bench seats,
good for smooching, not good for driving.
So, Richard tore that bench out
and dropped in a bucket seat,
but he never got around to setting up one for the passenger.
Not exactly the best configuration
for a young eligible bachelor. (chuckles)
This was when he met the love of his life, Linda Owens.
She fell quickly for the tall, charming Petty
and the two were married in 1958.
When Richard turned 21 in 1958,
his dad gave him one of his cars from the previous season,
a 1957 Oldsmobile convertible.
Side note, at that time NASCAR had two top tier divisions,
one for hardtops and one for convertibles.
Also, these cars were pretty much stock,
hence the name stock cars.
They got tuned up and modified
to perform better on primitive dirt ovals.
But for the most part,
the cars you saw racing at the fairgrounds,
were the same ones that you could buy at the dealership.
What wins on Sunday sells on Monday,
you ever heard that before?
Have you, huh?
Richard and his brother Maurice
got the Oldsmobile race-ready and drove it out
to Columbia, South Carolina for a race.
That weekend Richard finished sixth
and earned a prize of 200 bones.
Little did the crowd and the competition know
that young Richard Petty from Level Cross
had just begun his journey to NASCAR super-stardom.
From then on Petty raced with the now iconic number 43.
But with so many numbers to choose from
how could he possibly choose that one?
There has to be some legendary story explaining why.
- Well, the 43 number comes after the 42, okay?
The 42 number was my father's number.
He started with the 42,
I think he picked it off of a license plate or something,
and just said, okay that's the number.
And I came along and I used the 43.
So, we just got stuck on the 40 numbers.
- The next year Richard was racing a lot more,
entering 21 races.
Late in the season, Richard and Maurice,
his brother, remember?
Were at the shop, fixing up one of their dad's
Plymouth Fury race cars.
They were about to put on a new coat of paint
when Maurice discovered,
"Ugh, there wasn't enough white to cover the whole car."
"Hold on, I got an idea."
(spit hitting spittoon)
Richard found a can of navy blue paint
and the bros mixed the two together
then sprayed it on the car.
When it dried, they couldn't believe
what a majestic hue they had created.
It was as blue as the sky and his bright as their future,
a future so bright, he always wears shades.
"Well, I hope Dad likes it."
Lee did like it, and he liked it so much
that Petty Enterprises trademarked the color.
Petty blue was here to stay,
and would be on every Petty car, forever.
Richard finished fourth
in the convertible division that season
and 15th in the Grand National Championship,
14 places behind his dad.
(grunts angrily)
I know how that feels,
my dad would make me sit at least 14 rows behind him
whenever he had me on the weekend and we went to a movie.
Lee won his third and final championship that year.
Richard had a lot of catching up to do.
Two years later in 1961, both Lee and Richard
were entered in the Daytona 500.
During the first 40-lap qualification race,
Richard's car got tangled up
with the Pontiac of Junior Johnson.
Jr. Johnson, I've said it before and I'll say it again,
race car drivers have the best names.
Richard and Junior Johnson hit each other,
which sent Richard over the outside guard rail
and into the parking lot.
He was lucky, only getting a small cut and a twisted ankle.
He went back to the pit to recover.
Then, Lee went out for his second qualifier.
On the 37th lap, Lee got into a wreck of his own,
flying off the track, over the turn-four guard rail.
Track officials rushed Lee to the hospital,
which was good because that meant he was still alive.
Lee swung in and out of consciousness but he held on,
surviving his unbelievable crash.
After spending four months in the hospital,
Lee Petty decided that would be
his last year behind the wheel,
and hung up his racing gloves, Lee was done.
But he didn't want the Petty name to stop racing,
Petty Enterprises would continue on,
this time with Richard and Maurice in control.
In 1964, Plymouth had a new engine
for the boys to play with.
The 426 Hemi's hemispherical combustion chamber
made for super efficient burning of fuel, which meant
more power!
The 426 was also really really really big,
measuring seven liters.
When Plymouth handed out to Hemis to their NASCAR teams,
they explicitly informed them not to test them at full bore.
The Hemi was so much more powerful
that the other manufacturers
would immediately know that something was up.
Plymouth told 'em, "If you must go full throttle,
"do it would only in a race."
The reason for the secrecy was that technically,
the 426 Hemi wasn't a production engine.
So technically, it wasn't race legal.
But hey, in the world of NASCAR, "technically"
buys a lot of leeway,
and Plymouth figured they could get away with it.
And they were right, the Petty team arrived
to the Daytona 500 with the monstrous mill
under the hood of Richard's Plymouth.
The green flag dropped and the race was underway,
but not long after, the Hemi-powered cars
started coming into the pits.
Ruh-roh.
What the heck is goin' on?
Would Petty be next?
It turned out that the Hemis were sucking so much air
that trash was starting to block the intakes
on some of the cars.
Lucky for Richard, he wasn't afflicted,
and he cruised to the front of the pack.
A few hundred miles later, Richard took the checkered flag,
marking the first of his seven Daytona 500 wins.
Richard rocketed to the top of the standings
and won his first championship that year,
and the wins just kept on coming.
And by 1967, Richard was on top of his game,
Petty piloted his Plymouth Belvedere to 27 wins that season,
including an insane winning streak of 10 in a row.
With that many wins, Richard easily clinched
the championship for the second time.
No one has even come close to touching that win streak
and likely never will. And at this point,
Richard was still decades from retirement.
'67 was the year he got his well-deserved nickname,
The King.
Unfortunately for Plymouth,
Petty's luck wouldn't be so good the next season.
Ford debuted their Torino, a totally
(whooshing) aerodynamic design,
that cut through the air like a knife through butter.
Richard's Plymouth Road Runner was a little
blocky, by comparison.
Richard really wanted a better car.
He wanted Plymouth to help him make the Roadrunner better.
But Chrysler, Plymouth's parent company
didn't give them any money to do that.
Chrysler was busy helping Dodge upgrade their car,
the Charger.
After getting beaten by Fords all season,
Petty announced that he was leaving Plymouth for a new team,
Ford.
Petty hopped into a Torino for the first race
of the '69 season at Riverside Raceway, and guess what,
he freaking won!
I'm not surprised, this guy is pretty much the best.
And he was in the best car, how could he lose?
The dude spun out twice and that didn't even matter.
This guy's a God, there's no way he could ever lose.
Well, he could lose.
Because later that year, Dodge, his old Bay,
debuted their answer to the Torino menace, the Daytona.
They're all like it, "Hey, what's up Richard?
"You look nice, hope you're doing good.
"Oh, have you met my new car, the Daytona?
"Yeah, it's really really aerodynamic.
"Oh, how's the Torino?
"Oh, yeah I remember, yeah, it's prettier aerodynamic.
"It doesn't look as aerodynamic as it used to,
"now that I put it next to the Daytona.
"Okay cool, I'm glad you're well.
"No, it's great seeing you.
"All right, later."
If you wanna know more about the Daytona
check out our video.
Plymouth gave the Daytona a brother the next year
with the Superbird, which was pretty much the same
but a little bit different.
Petty saw that Superbird and thought,
"Yum-yum, Petty like."
So he went back to Plymouth in 1970
for a brand-new Petty-blue Superbird,
and the King won five freaking races with it,
and 13 more with his Plymouth Road Runner.
They only ran the Superbird at the longer superspeedways
where the aerodynamics would be most beneficial.
The next year, he stayed with Plymouth
and won his third championship.
That is super.
Fast forward a few years to again,
Daytona, 1976 baby.
Richard was now driving a Dodge Charger
painted in his Petty-blue and STP-red.
Why blue and red, you ask? Well, here we go.
When the engine lubricant company STP
approached Petty to sponsors his team,
they wanted the car to be their day-glow red, Petty refused.
He wanted the car to be blue,
like it had always been, come on, which STP refused.
Petty made for the door,
but the STP rep stopped him and offered him a compromise.
"How about we make the car half red and half blue?"
"Hmm, that might work."
Turns out the two bold colors
complement each other just fine,
and from then on, Richard Petty
had two iconic paint schemes to his name.
Anyway, Daytona '76, Richard was leading on the last lap
with rival David Pearson right behind him.
Going down the backstretch, Pearson went low
and passed Richard on the inside.
Petty tried to return the favor
through the turn four exit and he was so close,
his fender right up against Pearson's car,
Richard made it past but they touched!
What happened next, boggles the mind.
Both cars spun,
and they were close enough to the finish line
that it looked like Richard could slide his car
across the line, but he didn't make it.
As his crew pushed his car to the finish,
David Pearson drove by,
snatching the victory away from Richard
in one of the most memorable NASCAR finishes ever,
but that wasn't even the craziest one.
Again, Daytona 500, 1979.
Okay, I just wanna take a second and apologize
that all these stories are from Daytona.
That's just how history worked out.
He's the freaking king of Daytona, so sue me.
Richard was running in third place, far behind the leaders,
Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough.
On the last lap, down the back straight,
Yarbrough tried to pass Allison on the inside
but Allison blocked him.
The cars made contact and excruciatingly hit one another
three more times before hitting the wall at turn three.
Both cars slid down to the infield and came to a stop,
it was then Richard's race to win.
Darrell Waltrip went way down to the curtain
in the final turn, but Petty
held his line and crossed the finish,
winning his sixth Daytona 500.
What happens next, shocked the world.
Both Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough
got out of their cars
and just started wailing on each other.
This was the first fully televised Daytona 500 on live TV,
and two drivers were just dukin' it out
like me and my brother Lars
at the reading of my Meemaw's will.
For so many people, this was their first exposure
to the sport of stock car racing,
and they freaking loved it.
The 1979 Daytona 500 was a pivotal moment
in the history of NASCAR for that very reason,
it was the perfect first race
for the people around the world.
Number 43 kept racing and winning through the early 80s
and he entered the 1984 Firecracker 400
with a career 199 wins.
The race was heated and close.
In lap 158 of 160, Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough
hurtled through turn one
at the Daytona International Speedway.
A spun-out car rests in the infield below.
Indifferent to the unfortunate driver beneath them,
Petty and Yarbrough fly by at 200 miles per.
With only a few laps left, every inch gained
means the difference between victory and defeat.
As their cars devoured Daytona's backstretch,
victory is within reach for both drivers.
Yarbrough darts to the left
and passes Petty on the entrance to turn three.
Because of that spun out car,
the caution flag waves in the distance.
Both men see the traffic ahead,
Petty has just seconds to make a move.
A win today would be his 200th victory,
solidifying his place as a NASCAR legend.
So the yellow caution flag I mentioned,
nowadays that means you gotta slow down.
But in the early 80s, NASCAR rules stated that
even though there was a yellow caution flag,
you didn't have to slow down
until you crossed the finish line.
Only then, did you have to stay
in whatever position you were in.
Even though there were three laps left
in the Firecracker 400, Yarborough and Petty
we're racing like it was the last lap,
because effectively, it was the last lap of racing.
So Cale passed Richard, they were coming up on traffic.
With basically no time left, what was Petty to do?
He threw it down on the inside,
Richard Petty won the race by a bumper
and achieved what no one else in NASCAR history
is even close to achieving, 200 victories.
Making him the undisputed king of the oval.
Petty raced for another eight more years
and didn't win once, he was a driver through and through.
Richard Petty's last race was in 1992, and coincidentally,
it was the future champ Jeff Gordon's first race.
Richard stepped down to run the Petty team
and has since opened up a shop to work on road cars
and restore vintage NASCARs.
But the number 43 still adorns a Petty-blue car
that hurdles around the tracks
in the NASCAR Cup Series today.
It's piloted by my closest friend, Bubba Wallace.
- James, stop telling people we're friends.
- Hi Bubba, miss you buddy.
Not only is the number 43 being driven
by a young, ambitious, very talented driver,
but Bubba is the first African-American driver in 45 years
to attempt to run the full Cup Series schedule.
A historic champions team making history again.
Is there anything you want to say to NASCAR?
- Bye. (everyone laughs)
Last race of 2018 is this Sunday at Homestead Miami,
you don't wanna miss it, it all comes down to this.
Me and Jesse are gonna be there, come find us.
This week's episode of Up To Speed
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