Tuesday
NASCAR’s Only Seven-Time Champions: Earnhardt, Petty Through Eyes of Those Who Knew Them Best
Press ReleaseKYLE PETTY AND LARRY McREYNOLDS DISCUSS ‘THE KING’ AND ‘THE INTIMIDATOR’
MAY SPECIALS ON SPEED™ TO HONOR CAREERS OF
DALE EARNHARDT AND RICHARD PETTY
Petty: “What we do on the track is what we do but it’s not who we are … I’m more proud of him for being a husband and a father than for ever being a race car driver.”
McReynolds: “After he finally had that surgery, we saw a new Dale … he had bounce in his step, he had confidence in his voice and there’s no question he definitely had another championship in him.”
Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt will be inducted into the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame class May 23 (1 p.m. ET live on SPEED) but before the Induction Ceremony, SPEED will chronicle their careers in separate NASCAR Hall of Fame specials. A one-hour special Petty special premieres May 8 on SPEED at 2:30 p.m. ET, while an Earnhardt biography debuts May 14 at 11 p.m. ET.
SPEED analysts Kyle Petty, son of Richard and a former driver, and Larry McReynolds, the crew chief who led Earnhardt to his elusive Daytona 500 victory, share their thoughts on what made these legendary competitors Hall of Fame material:
Richard Petty: The Quintessential Fan’s Favorite Was a Fan First:
Richard Petty’s tall, slender frame, trademark cowboy hat and dark sunglasses evoke more than memories of one of the greatest race car drivers of all time. He embodies what NASCAR fans came to love about the sport, a real person never too busy to sign an autograph and make every race fan feel like he was one of them.
“The King’s example always has been that he knows he was very fortunate and blessed to step across the line from being a fan to become a participant,” Kyle Petty, now a SPEED analyst, said. “We’re all just fans of the sport, extremely blessed to be a participant, and that’s what he always carried with him. He always looked at the fan as a reflection of himself, the guy who asks for the autograph and photo, the eight-year-old who wants to be a race car driver. In the end, we’re all just fans who get to play the sport we love, and he never lost sight of that.
“He grew up going to the race track when NASCAR was first formed and his heroes were guys like Raymond Parks and Red Byron,” Petty continued. “If you drop him into a room with those guys, he’s going to ask them for autographs because that’s the pedestal he put them on. Finally, he got to the point where he was on that pedestal and people asked him for his autograph. Then I think he put himself back in that position as a fan and thought, ‘If someone wants my autograph, I’m going to sit here and sign every one of them because it’s an honor for people to even ask me.’ I think that’s the legacy he has left for the drivers.”
While Petty set the example on and off the track for generations of drivers to come, what made him into the legend he became?
“It’s always hard to define greatness,” Petty said. “The skill set is one thing. But what made Richard Petty Richard Petty is that same intangible quality that made Arnold Palmer Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus Jack Nicklaus or Michael Jordan Michael Jordan. Out of 43 drivers, why do fans latch onto that one like The King or Earnhardt? That’s a hard question. It’s an intangible. I don’t know what made Richard Petty Richard Petty except for his love of the sport and his desire to be the best, coupled with talent capable of making him the best during that time.”
It may not have been the intimidating and grinning black moustache of Earnhardt, but when the competition saw a rearview mirror full of the No. 43, they usually knew their day was done.
“When competitors saw The King coming in their rearview mirror, the thing they feared the most was the same thing they now fear about Jimmie Johnson – they know they didn’t beat themselves,” Petty said. “They knew when the 43 passed them, they were going to have to go up there and pass the 43 back. The 43 wasn’t going to break. The 43 wasn’t going to wreck. Richard Petty wasn’t going to put himself in a stupid position. So, if he was running competitively enough to win the race, I think what they feared the most was, ‘If he gets around me, I’m never going to get back around him.’ I think that’s what a lot of the competitors today fear about Jimmie. Richard Petty didn’t beat himself.”
Seven championships and a record 200 victories aside, what Kyle Petty most admires about his father can’t be measured in trophies collected or laps logged.
“I’m most proud of him for just being a father,” Kyle Petty said. “We’ve always separated the family thing from the driver thing. What we do on the track is what we do but it’s not who we are. I don’t think any of our family has ever thought that’s who we are. Obviously, the (Victory Junction Gang) Camp and things we’ve done away from the race track are more important than things we’ve done on the race track. I’m proudest of him when I look at my sisters and my mother … I’m more proud of him for being a husband and a father than for ever being a race car driver.”
Dale Earnhardt – The Intimidator Not Many People Knew
Earnhardt will long be immortalized for the bump-and-run, his unapologetic driving style and take-no-prisoners attitude behind the wheel, but Larry McReynolds says the man inside the race car had a completely different side few ever glimpsed.
“All anyone ever saw was Dale Earnhardt in that No. 3 car beating and banging and knocking people out of the way to get another spot on the track,” said McReynolds, now a SPEED analyst. “But to me the side of Dale that most people never saw was his honest passion for his fans, in particular for children. He loved kids. We all know the story of the little Make-a-Wish girl, Wessa Miller, who brought him the lucky penny on pit road the day before the 1998 Daytona 500. We were in a bit of a bind with our car because we’d had an engine issue, but that wasn’t important to Dale then. What was important to him was spending time with Wessa. That’s the side of Dale that no one ever saw unless you were really close to him. He wasn’t anything like the man we saw on the race track, particularly when it came to children.”
While the image of the man people knew on the race track was one of an aggressive, calculating and retaliatory competitor, McReynolds says he respected Earnhardt for his “what you see is what you get” portrayal of himself. While many drivers today are criticized for being too politically correct, too corporate, McReynolds insists Earnhardt always spoke from the heart, whether his sentiments were popular or not.
“What Dale showed future generations of drivers is to be yourself because he was always the same whether he was around friends, being interviewed or in the race car,” McReynolds recalled. “You never had to worry about whether Dale was being honest with you and coming clean. When he talked to the media, he wasn’t worried about having his sunglasses on, his drink in hand. He took good care of his sponsors but his interviews were genuine, whether in Victory Lane, coming out of the infield care center or just after he got flipped upside down with 11 to go in the Daytona 500. You knew Dale spoke from the heart.”
And McReynolds vividly remembers one of those conversations in which Earnhardt spoke from the heart. It took place in May 2000 after McReynolds had been moved from crew chief of the No. 3 to the No. 31 team at Richard Childress Racing, and after Earnhardt had undergone surgery between the ’99 and 2000 seasons. Both men were waiting in the parking lot of their daughters’ school for the kids to return from a field trip. During the course of their lengthy discussion, McReynolds realized just how substantial a shot Earnhardt had at winning another championship and what a threat he remained to the competition.
“He waved me over to his truck,” McReynolds related. “We talked for almost an hour and he made me feel so good about being moved to the No. 31 team because I was devastated over that deal. I worked with Dale more than a year-and-a-half and never could really give him what he was looking for in a race car. But he told me sitting in that truck, ‘Larry, you and I never had a fair chance together. I needed this surgery a long time ago and feel like a new man now. The two years you and I worked together, I never could get quite comfortable.’
“He had used that phrase a lot and it drove me absolutely crazy,” McReynolds continued. “I’d ask him what the car was doing and he’d say, ‘I don’t know. It’s just not comfortable.’ What does ‘not comfortable’ mean? But he was speaking the truth – he wasn’t comfortable. After he finally had that surgery, we saw a new Dale. I talked to him just after he had run the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2001 and there was a new Dale Earnhardt. He had bounce in his step, he had confidence in his voice and there’s no question he definitely had another championship in him.”
Many in Earnhardt’s inner circle often cited his perseverance amidst adversity and ability to drive a bad car straight to the front. McReynolds witnessed that tenacity firsthand in the first race for which he served as Earnhardt’s crew chief – the 1997 Daytona 500.
“Dale pulled me aside before the race and I think to some degree he was being facetious, but deep down he meant what he said,” McReynolds recalled. “He said, ‘Larry, if you’ll just get me in position to be close to the rear bumper of the guy leading late in the race, he will see a good day gone bad,’ which meant ‘I’ll do whatever I have to do to win this race’ because he wanted to win it so badly. We were in position late, the car picked up a little bit of a push and (Jeff) Gordon got into our left-rear quarterpanel and the car barrel-rolled down the back straightaway.
“What happened next was a prime example of how tenacious that guy was,” he continued. “I don’t know of any other driver who would have been sitting in the ambulance, looking out the window at his mangled race car and then all of a sudden realizing, ‘That son-of-a-gun will still roll. That son-of-a-gun will still go.’ He hopped out of the ambulance and told the poor track worker to get the hell out of his car, climbed in and drove it to pit road. I don’t know of another driver who would have done that, nor one that would do that today.”
It is the funny stories such as this, the practical jokes Earnhardt played on his crew and his remarkable feats on the race track that hold a special place in McReynolds’ heart. Earnhardt’s death in 2001 devastated and left an indelible mark on McReynolds and the entire racing world, much like the loss of Davey Allison, for whom McReynolds also had served as crew chief.
“There are two drivers that touched my life and I touched theirs and I think about every single day,” McReynolds expressed. “It may only be for a couple of seconds, but I think about them every single day, and that’s Davey Allison and Dale Earnhardt.”
… And McReynolds isn’t the only one …
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Article Tags: Dale Earnhardt, Kyle Petty, Larry McReynolds, NASCAR, NASCAR Hall of Fame, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NSCS, Richard "The King" Petty, Richard Petty, SPEED, SPEED TV, SPEEDtv, SPEEDtv.com, The King
