Richard Petty says drivers delivered paybacks with their fists in his day

By Bob Pockrass

Friday, March 19, 2010

Richard Petty says drivers used their fists in his day.

Jim Fluharty
NASCAR Scene

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BRISTOL, Tenn. – Richard Petty held a fist up when talking about how drivers dealt with each other when they had problems on the track back in his day.

Petty, co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, said he couldn’t remember an incident of payback as blatant as that of Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards against Penske Racing’s Brad Keselowski two weeks ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“If that would have been, in our day, the two parties would have penalized each other before it was all over with,” Petty said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway as he held up a fist.

The winner of 200 races and seven Cup titles from 1958-1992, Petty said that Edwards’ actions – spinning Keselowski and causing his car to get airborne – wouldn’t have been considered excessive had they been racing for position instead of Edwards being 150 laps down.

“That’s racing,” Petty said about paybacks in general. “I don’t know [this situation]. I’ve been on the outside looking in, so I don’t know what’s the conflict, how much conflict, all that kind of stuff.

“NASCAR told them at the beginning of the year they could beat and bash on each other. And if [Keselowski] had just spun out and hadn’t turned over, it would have just been a no-event deal.”

Petty said he couldn’t predict what he would have done if he was in Edwards’ position.

“I don’t know what I would have done in that situation from a driver’s standpoint or from NASCAR’s standpoint,” Petty said.

What he wouldn’t have done, Petty said, is driven the wrong way down pit road, which Edwards did when NASCAR told him it was parking him after the accident.

“The only thing I didn’t like about the whole deal was he came down pit road backwards, against the [traffic],” Petty said. “No matter what goes on, that’s a no-no.”