Richard Petty remembers first start; 50-year anniversary celebration on tap
By Mike Hembree - Associate Editor
Saturday, May 17, 2008
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David Griffin / NASCAR Scene
CONCORD, N.C. – Richard Petty knew from the very first lap.
“I told Dale [Inman, his cousin] on the ride home that I think I’m going to like this driving,” Petty said. “I felt comfortable doing it.”
That was July 12, 1958, and Petty had just driven in a NASCAR race for the first time. His driving career would stretch through 1992, and he would win 200 races and seven championships.
That night at Columbia Speedway in central South Carolina started it all.
Petty’s first NASCAR start will be celebrated July 12 this year – 50 years after the occasion – at Chicagoland Speedway prior to the LifeLock 400 Sprint Cup race. Petty will drive ceremonial laps at the track, and Petty Enterprises’ No. 43 and No. 45 cars will carry special “Petty blue” paint schemes.
“It was a natural,” Petty said of that first race in NASCAR’s Convertible Division. “For the first time out, I practiced and qualified and
ran in the race and didn’t crash, so I thought I had accomplished something.”
Lee Petty, Richard’s father, raced in a Grand National (now Sprint Cup) division race in Asheville, N.C. that night and missed his son’s debut.
“He said run as fast as you feel comfortable with, and that’s all the instruction I had,” Petty said.
Petty, then 21 years old, finished sixth in his first NASCAR race. Six days later, he ran in the Grand National (now Sprint Cup) division for the first time in a race in Toronto, Canada.
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