Speedway Stars

Richard Petty

Simply known as “The King,” Richard Petty was the most dominant stock car racer in NASCAR’s earliest decades of national prominence. Growing up in North Carolina, Petty started racing after attending college and was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year in 1959. Petty won seven NASCAR Cup series championships and seven Daytona 500 races. He was the first to win 200 NASCAR Cup races and set records for the most consecutive wins (10) and wins in a season (27). Petty raced in five different decades and by the 1980s he became an unofficial ambassador and international symbol of the sport with appearances in several movies and television programs.