{"id":116842,"date":"2025-09-03T13:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T13:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116842\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T13:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T13:51:11","slug":"richard-petty-on-nascars-evolution-the-playoff-formats-problems-and-overcoming-loss-12-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116842\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Petty on NASCAR\u2019s evolution, the playoff format\u2019s problems and overcoming loss: 12 Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: \u201cThe King,\u201d Richard Petty \u2014 NASCAR\u2019s winningest driver and a seven-time series champion. Petty, 88, was voted as the No. 1 NASCAR driver of all time<\/a> in our panel of industry experts in 2023 and is now an ambassador for Legacy Motor Club. This interview has been condensed and edited, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions Podcast.<\/p>\n

1. What was one of the first autographs you got as a kid and what do you remember about that moment?<\/p>\n

I never got but one autograph, and I got that for (son) Kyle. He was a big fan of the Green Bay quarterback \u2026<\/p>\n

Bart Starr?<\/p>\n

Bart Starr, OK? We were in Texas somewhere, and he was staying at the same hotel. That\u2019s the only autograph I ever got. I like autographs on checks.<\/p>\n

2. What is the most miserable you\u2019ve ever been inside of a race car?<\/p>\n

That\u2019d be hard to say after running 30-some years and all the heat and broken bones and all that. The biggest part was getting carbon monoxide (poisoning). And you don\u2019t feel anything, you just slow down. But as far as hurting, sometimes you\u2019d have ribs broken or legs broken or something. You had to drive a race car, so you just took a Goody\u2019s and went on down the road.<\/p>\n

How would you know that you had the carbon monoxide poisoning?<\/p>\n

What happened is you\u2019d just start slowing down. You\u2019re thinking you\u2019re running wide open and first thing you know, somebody who is 10 laps behind passed you. So you say, \u201cOK, it\u2019s time for me to get out of this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wow. How long before you would start feeling better again?<\/p>\n

You get out and start getting some oxygen, and they\u2019d give you pure oxygen. First time I got it was Atlanta, and it bothered me the rest of my racing career \u2014 I think it was \u201961 or \u201962. But a lot of times, I\u2019d feel it coming on quick, and I\u2019d get out of the car, get some oxygen and then get back in the car.<\/p>\n

3. Outside of racing, what is your most recent memory of something you got way too competitive about?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t get competitive about anything, really. We play games with the grandkids and all that, and sometimes they let me win. But other than that, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve ever been competitive; whatever I was doing, you wanted to be the best you could be. And sometimes it wasn\u2019t good enough to win, but it was good as you could do. And that\u2019s all you can ask (of) yourself.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re somebody who has won so much, but if you lost and you gave it your best, was that good enough for you?<\/p>\n

Yes, it was. A couple or three races, when I got beat on the last lap and stuff, I\u2019d knock myself in the head when it was over: \u201cHow stupid can you be to let this happen?\u201d But it was in the past, and there wasn\u2019t anything you could do about it, so you went on down the road.<\/p>\n

4. What do people get wrong about you?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what people think about me. Everybody who has ever met me has a different opinion of me. Some of it might be, \u201cI don\u2019t like the way he looks. I don\u2019t like the way he talks. He\u2019s from the wrong part of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing you can do to change people\u2019s opinion. Most of the time, the first time people meet you, that\u2019s when they put you in a category. And if it\u2019s a bad category, it takes you forever to get out of it. First impressions are very important. But I\u2019ve got no control of what other people think.<\/p>\n

\"Richard<\/p>\n

Richard Petty, in August 2024. (Sean Gardner \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

5. Do you ever do any Ubers? You ever ride in the Uber?<\/p>\n

No, not really. But I ride around with some of the guys who work for me, and sometimes I think they\u2019re an Uber driver. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

6. I\u2019m asking each person a wild card question. I\u2019m sure you have a lot of aches and pains when you get up in the morning from a lifetime of racing. But do you know when things hurt, if they\u2019re from specific wrecks? Like if your knee hurts, are you like, \u201cOh, that\u2019s from that Daytona wreck?\u201d<\/p>\n

You remember where you broke stuff, except how many concussions I had. I can\u2019t tell you every place I had a concussion. Broke so many ribs at different places, I can\u2019t tell you that. But if I broke a foot, broke a collarbone, broke a shoulder, broke an ankle, I can remember those because they were one-time incidents.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just one of those deals where I\u2019m real fortunate. I get up the morning and I don\u2019t hurt. I think what happened is there\u2019s so many broke places that hurt, they all hurt at the same time, so they all hurt each other. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

7. I\u2019ve been doing these 12 Questions interviews for 16 years now, so I\u2019m going back to an older question and re-using it. One I\u2019ve never gotten to ask you: Back in your day, did drivers flip each other the middle finger? Was that a thing when you guys raced? Did you give hand gestures out the window?<\/p>\n

No, we just used a bumper. (Laughs.) You know what I mean? If you had trouble with somebody, you tried to take care of it right then. Now, when the race is over, people get healed with each other: They start telephoning each other, faxing each other and stuff.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t do that. That crowd we came with, as quick as a race was over, they got it over with. And then everybody got in the same car and went home. It was instantaneous. Get it behind you. Don\u2019t dwell on anything that\u2019s going to upset you.<\/p>\n

8. Is there any driver out here where if they won a race, you would go to victory lane and be one of the first people to congratulate them?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a couple right now: the 43 driver (Erik Jones) and 42 driver (John Hunter Nemechek), OK? Because we\u2019re still associated with those two numbers. They\u2019d probably be the only ones. Unless I happen to be standing by the winner\u2019s circle when they come in.<\/p>\n

9. Do you know anything about AI technology?<\/p>\n

I see people using it. I look at AI, and they go through everybody\u2019s computer to get the information out, OK? So if one of those computers that they\u2019re getting information from is wrong, then that makes everything they say and do wrong. So how are you going to control that particular deal? Because everybody and everything that\u2019s on that computer, the majority of people sit there and believe it. But you\u2019ve got to question a lot of it.<\/p>\n

To me, there\u2019s nothing to check AI. No matter what you do, you\u2019ve always got to have somebody to double-check and make sure what you\u2019re saying and what you\u2019re doing is right.<\/p>\n

10. What is a time in your life that you felt was really challenging, but you were proud of the way you responded to it?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had good days, bad days and in-between days. Probably the hardest thing I really had to live through was we lost Adam \u2014 Kyle\u2019s son, my grandson (in a 2000 crash at New Hampshire). That was bad.<\/p>\n

But my wife (Lynda) went down with cancer. For four or five years, she kept getting worse and worse, and then died (in 2014). Just me and her lived in that big old house. All of a sudden, I lived by myself, and so I had to change my way of thinking, my way of doing stuff. That\u2019s probably the biggest disappointment in my whole life. Even though I lost my mother, my daddy and my brother, (the marriage) was something I lived with 55 years. So it was really hard to swallow.<\/p>\n

The only other time we did this 12 Questions interview was 2014, and it had only been six months since that happened. You said at the time you were going to have to relearn how to do everything because she did a lot of thinking for you. How has that adjustment been over the last decade or so?<\/p>\n

Well, I was fortunate. I have three daughters who run things now for me, and I\u2019ve got a lady who looks after the house, one helps around the farm, one that goes with me from time to time and makes sure I can get my right food and right medicines or whatever it is.<\/p>\n

So really, I think I\u2019ve got six or seven people taking care of me. Where it used to be one: Lynda Gayle took care of me. So it took a bunch of people to do the same job she was doing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

11. What needs to happen in NASCAR to take the sport to the next level of popularity?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a question everybody asks, everybody in racing and NASCAR, naturally the TV people and the people who own the tracks. The deal is when our crowd came through \u2014 the Pearsons and Allisons and Yarboroughs and Bakers \u2014 the sport was growing. You had football, baseball, basketball, maybe a little tennis, golf or something. But now you\u2019ve got so much competition from so many different deals. In other words, some guy has got $100 bucks to spend \u2014 is he gonna spend it on racing? Or is he gonna spend it on something else?<\/p>\n

And as the new generation has come through, everything has got to be instantaneous. We used to have fans come watch us run a 500-mile race that would take five hours. And they\u2019d come five hours before the race. Now, and even myself, I find my attention span is so much shorter. With kids growing up today, with all the computers and stuff, they want instant results. They\u2019re not real willing to sit there for three or four hours to see who wins the ballgame or the race.<\/p>\n

How do you get those people interested in cars? I don\u2019t know. Because my generation, you couldn\u2019t wait \u2019til you got to be 15 or 16 and got your driver\u2019s license. Now, people are 21 or 22 before they get their license, and people are not car-oriented. Before, if your father was a Ford man, you were a Ford man; if he was a Chevrolet man, you were a Chevrolet man. Now, people are not as interested in cars, per se. The loyalty (to a brand) is not like it was 40 or 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

Some people believe changing the championship format would help grow the sport again. Mark Martin has been really outspoken about going back to full-season points. Where do you land on that?<\/p>\n

OK, I\u2019m still from the old school. I\u2019m with Martin, that they start races in February and you run all year to November and it\u2019s, \u201cOK, who was the best that year?\u201d They should be champion.<\/p>\n

When they give points for leading different (stages) in the race and they give points for all this other stuff, that\u2019s a bunch of crap, OK? If you\u2019re sitting there and watching a football game and the team has been behind the whole game and they kick a field goal and they win the game, the guys who lost got a zero. That should be the same way in NASCAR racing. I don\u2019t care if you lead 499 laps of a 500-lap race \u2014 if you get beat, then you\u2019re not the winner, and you shouldn\u2019t have any (extra) points.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re trying to modernize stuff, and they\u2019re trying to keep up with other sports. They\u2019re trying to come up with new ideas. And so far, I haven\u2019t seen any of them really working.<\/p>\n

12. Each week, I ask the driver to give me a question for the next person. The last one was with Josh Berry, and he wants to know: What is your favorite moment racing with the Wood Brothers over the years?<\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve lost a bunch to their cars on the last lap, and I also beat their cars. I don\u2019t know if any of them really stand out. David Pearson, when he was driving for them, he won 40-some races, and I probably ran second in most of them.<\/p>\n

But those were the growing days of NASCAR, and you basically had just two people who were racing. There weren\u2019t 14 (drivers) in one line and 14 in the other; it was two cars racing, and the grandstand stood up for the whole last part of the race. So the excitement of stuff like that, I don\u2019t see it in racing today. How do you bring it back? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Do you have a question that I can ask the next driver?<\/p>\n

Not really, you know what I mean? See, the deal is, there was a group that started out: My dad (Lee Petty), Junior Johnson, Fireball Roberts. Then the Pearson and Allison and Yarborough crowd came through. Darrell (Waltrip) was mixed in the middle of that. Then the Earnhardt crowd came through, then Jeff Gordon came through, then Jimmie Johnson came through.<\/p>\n

Right now, there\u2019s too big of a crowd. We\u2019ve got no leaders. We\u2019ve had, what, 15 different winners this year? That does not create a following. No matter what happens, you need a fox out front. We don\u2019t have any leader \u2014 whether he\u2019s good, bad or indifferent.<\/p>\n

When Darrell was winning a bunch of races, they\u2019d call him \u201cJaws\u201d and people would come to see him either win or get beat. Same with Earnhardt: You wanted to see him win a race, or you wanted to see somebody beat him. Right now, we don\u2019t have that. So I think it takes a little prestige away from what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

What do you think of Connor Zilisch? Could he be the future star?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very impressed in what he\u2019s doing, but he\u2019s in the No. 1 car, OK? He\u2019s in winning cars. So he\u2019s expected to win. In the races when he starts first or second, he stays there. You don\u2019t see him back in 25th, working his way through traffic. So that\u2019s where the real drivers come in. And you know, he\u2019s still young enough that he\u2019s going to learn all that stuff. So long as he stays with a winning team, then he\u2019s going to be a winner.<\/p>\n

(Top photo: Logan Riely \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,12716,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-116842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-motorsports","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}