[piano intro] [gentle upbeat music] - [Heather] There is certainly a reason he's called The King.

- To us, it was normal.

I was raised in a racing family and racing was the head deal.

- [Heather] Coming up, we pay a royal visit to NASCAR legend Richard Petty.

- If you look at it from an angle, see the sparkle in there?

That's glass.

- [Heather] Come along as he walks us through memories of racing, family and life in the fast lane.

Learn why there's no place like his North Carolina home.

- I don't think I go anywhere that they don't ask where you're from.

So you always say North Carolina.

We're very, very proud of that.

That gives a little bit of attention back to North Carolina.

- [Heather] That's Next.

[gentle county music] All across the state, we're uncovering the unique stories that make North Carolina "My Home."

♪ Come home ♪ ♪ Come home ♪ [upbeat music] [engine revving] - We grew up with a car in the backyard instead of a barn as far as being a farmer, so basically that's all I knew.

- [Heather] With 200 racing wins and seven championships, you won't find any NASCAR driver more accomplished than Richard Petty.

He's been all over and home in Level Cross, North Carolina, is where his heart is and where we find him.

And we are joined by the legendary Richard Petty.

Thank you so much for being with us for "My Home, NC."

- Thank you for coming.

- We're here right in Level Cross where you grew up.

Next door is the house you were born in.

Talk a little bit about growing up in Level Cross.

What was that like?

- Well, I guess it was just common deal at the time.

You know, we lived on a dirt road, didn't have any electricity and naturally didn't have running water.

The guys down the street didn't have it either, so it didn't make a whole lot of difference.

One day they started racing, then we went out and seen that they had hard roads and indoor plumbing and all that stuff.

We grew up in that society and didn't know any different so we was happy as a June bug.

We thought the whole world was like that so we didn't really expand on not having anything.

You know, over a period of time we were able to go out and see the real world and and bring part of it back home.

- [Heather] What was it like watching your dad, those early years watching him race and build cars?

- All the people that I went to school with, all that, a lot of 'em were farmers.

They'd go home and plow the field or milk cows or whatever.

I'd come home and work on the race car, so I was a little bit different than the rest of the crowd.

- When did you know that you wanted to make racing your life's work?

- You know, I don't know if it was any sudden deal.

My dad was like 35 years old.

I would think I was 11 years old when they ran the very first race and so I don't know that I ever thought about doing it, I just never thought about doing anything else.

As time progressed, my father was able to win races and then when I got old enough, and at that time I was working on a race car and never really thought that much about driving until I think I was probably 18 years old or something when I asked my dad, "Why can't I start driving?"

He said, "Come back when you're 21, we'll talk about it."

So that's the way it happened.

- You had so many memorable races.

Do you have a favorite race or a favorite memory?

- It's hard to say.

We ran over 1100 races, lost a bunch and won a bunch, and it's hard to really say that one was more important.

The first one was important or you would've never got a second one or the 200th one.

Probably the 200th one was the biggest hullabaloo around him.

President of the United States was at Daytona on July 4th and we won our 200th race and we won it on the last green flag lap, so you know, if you're just doing a script, you wouldn't have wrote it out quite that way because kind of a unbelievable situation.

- You are statistically the most accomplished driver in NASCAR history.

What did you do to kind of tweak and get better?

- You know, I guess when we was going along and doing all this, you never thought about records or any of that kind of stuff.

You just said okay, we gotta do better this coming week then we've done this past week, or if we won, we gotta go back and win it again because everything that happened yesterday is history, so we had to reinvent ourself and reinvent everything, every race, every season and I think that's what kept us going and kept us ahead of things.

- Cars might be like children too, but do you have a favorite car?

Everybody says sometimes they're all your favorites.

- I told 'em any of 'em I could win in was favorites at that time.

We've got six of the Daytona 500 winners, won seven times, so those are real big memories because that was the biggest race of the year, got us off to a good start, and most time we had good years when that happens.

I guess they would have to be about as favorite cars yet.

[crash booming] - [Announcer] Been a crash on the homestretch, a car upside down.

- And that's Richard Petty.

- [Announcer] A blue car, it is Richard Petty.

- You had some memorable crashes.

How do you get back in a race car after going through something like that?

How did Linda let you get back in a race car?

- Concussions, they broke their neck a couple times, broke all the ribs, broke legs, feet.

The first thing I'd ask the doctor when he come in, "When can I get back in the race car?"

The situation's a little bit different now.

Think NASCAR, everybody's wearing safety gear.

I won a bunch of races that NASCAR wouldn't have been let me in the racetrack at now, but then they just said, you know, whatever, and you gotta figure we were doing it for a living.

We didn't have sponsors and stuff like that so we didn't show up at a race and do good, made it a little bit tougher to get to the next race, so you did it because you had to, but the main deal is you wanted to.

- [Heather] I think about Linda.

How did she feel when you would go out there?

- She had mixed emotions, I know, from the standpoint that her favorite deal was, you know, are we having fun when we're doing it?

I mean I'd get hurt and she'd come in looking, be laying there on a stretcher or something.

She'd said, "Are we having fun?"

And I said, "Well, I'm not right at the minute.

Give me about 15 minutes and I'll be okay."

- What was it like raising a family during the height of your NASCAR career?

- To us it was normal.

I was raised in a racing family and racing was the head deal.

When we got married and we had kids and stuff, we was married 55 years and then we lost her.

She lived the life, I lived the life, and then we lived the life together and the same way with the kids.

Every chance we got, we took 'em, we went to California, went to Florida, went to Canada, we tried to take 'em as much as we could, took 'em outta school, and then during the summer they travel all the time so they had a lot of racing experience also.

The family is there, but they don't get involved in the real race part of it and you see 'em hugging their wife or girlfriend or kissing their kid and get in the car and when you go to the winter circle, maybe they have none of that.

You never seen me do that.

At the beginning of the deal, they'd play around in the infield and get dirty and eat and have a big time, play football, whatever it was.

When the race was over, they'd go to the winter circle, so that's how they grew up and that was normal to them.

- [Heather] And whether it was visits to the White House or trips around the country, the four Petty children, Kyle, Sharon, Lisa, and Rebecca, were taught not to boast about their adventures.

- That was one thing Linda instilled in all the kids was, you know, we go and we do things that the kids you go to school don't get a chance to do, so don't go bragging about it or don't go telling them 'cause it makes them feel bad.

You know what I mean?

I mean, we went and enjoyed it, so you just keep it to yourself and go from there so she did a good job with that.

- [Heather] At the Petty Museum in Level Cross, you'll find many of The King's treasures, fast cars and memories of his days at Thunder, all of it, part of the Petty family legacy, each item unique and special in different ways.

- This is one of the very few museums in the world that's in the original place.

Most time they take the houses, take it and put it in a big fancy building with chandeliers.

And right here, when you come through that gate, you're back in time, this is 1949.

This is where NASCAR started, our part of the racing of it, and this is where it's still at.

- I think one of my favorite things in the museum is the characters made famous by Disney Pixar's the "Cars" movie, which you and Linda famously voiced Mr.

The King and Mrs The King, but Linda wasn't originally supposed to be in that movie, was she?

- No, she really wasn't.

They had me all fixed up to be the Superbird and be Mr.

The King.

I was in the little booth doing the voiceovers and man that was running the show, John Lasseter, he got talking to Linda, he asked her, he said, "Would you like to be in the movie?"

"Yeah, be all right with me."

So she told him that she wanted to be a '69 Ford Station wagon.

Up to that time we just had a regular four-door car and she would fix food and have sandwich stuff in the back of the car and raise the trunk and the crew would come over and eat and I'd come and eat and the kids would all eat.

And when she got that station wagon, she had all that room.

She thought she'd died and gone to heaven so she wanted to be that car and that's the one they use for us.

[playful upbeat music] - When you look in here, what is the most special things you can think of?

- Everything in here is special.

You know, I walk through here and I look and I say, "How did one person have enough time just to touch every one of these things and then do something else too?"

You know what I mean?

- I know what you mean, yeah.

- So you say, "How'd you have time to collect this stuff or accumulate it or whatever it is?"

I mean, you know, you got watches, we've got guns, you got belt buckles, you got trophies.

- We've also got like some special displays.

We have the 10 championships that were won out of this compound.

We have those on display.

We display some of our Hall of Famers, which we have four Hall of Famers from this camp, which is huge.

And then some special things to us as a family, so some of his personal collections.

He's got his guns here, he's got his knives, as well as my mother's dolls.

He's a very humble person, so you have to know that first, so when he walks through, he's like, "We got a lot of stuff, don't we?"

But he understands how us as children feel, it's like we want to preserve everything we can because, once again, it's our legacy, it's our heritage.

I want my children to see what, not only their grandfather did, but what my grandfather did, and I want my grandchildren to know where they came from and how much all of this means to us as a family.

- [Heather] Next door to the museum is the Historic Petty Home Place, where Richard and his younger brother, Maurice, were born.

- You know, my dad is, he came from a big family and he was very proud of his family.

He's proud of where he came from, right here in Randolph County.

He's proud of North Carolina.

You know, he always says, "I've been a lot of places, but there's nowhere I like to go best than going back home," 'cause he loves it here.

And so that house meant a lot to him because it's the house, not only that he was born in, but it's the house that he grew up in and, you know, and my grandparents lived right there, right here on the same property, building race cars in the backyard up until the day they passed away and so the house just means a lot to all of us because there's so much history in it.

- [Heather] And amid the family and racing history is living history, including Richard Petty's very own chapter as an American hero, visits with presidents, and awards of the highest honor.

- It's the one right here.

- Yeah.

- This is it.

- Oh, yeah.

- That's when we see your eyes is when you go to the White House.

- [Richard] Right, yeah.

[laughing] - You've been to the White House quite a few times.

What has that been like just to get to know some of that history?

- You know, it's really a big honor, I guess, to be able to go.

First time I was invited up there, I think Nixon was president, so we all get ready and get dressed up, put my boots on, and they said, "You can't go to the White House in boots."

I said, "I gotta have shoes."

Then first thing you know, a couple of presidents got to wearing boots.

I didn't set a trend.

- You started a trend.

- I think the guy's way back, some wore boots also.

- You received the Medal of Freedom, right?

What was that like from George Bush?

- Of all the honors that's ever been bestowed on me, that was the greatest honor.

There was not that many of 'em out there.

It's something that you don't work for.

In other words, if you win a race and get a trophy, you've worked for, they had a bunch of people around you had made that happen.

This was just something out of the blue, I guess.

Never even thought it, but basically didn't even know what it was till then we got to reading up on it and it went to different people in different societies of life that have contributed basically back to the benefit of other people.

So you do stuff like that, you don't really think about it, it's more of a personal deal.

You didn't do it to advertise, you did it because the right thing to do and it made you feel good about it.

- [Heather] For the Pettys, a fourth generation racing legacy was not without heartache.

On May 12th, 2000, Richard's grandson Adam was killed in a crash during a practice run at the New Hampshire International Speedway.

In Adam's memory, the Petty family opened Victory Junction, a camp for children with serious illnesses, a tribute to Adam's desire to help others, especially children.

His legacy reaches so far for such a young guy in NASCAR and at the Victory Junction game camp.

Can you talk a little bit about his legacy and how we see that today?

- One of the reasons Victory Junction's here, but the big reason is because of Adam.

Adam and his dad was on a motorcycle ride and they went through Florida.

They had a place down there called Boggy Creek.

Adam said, "Why can't we do something like that?"

And here's a 18, 19-year-old kid with no money in the bank, no nothing, but he was interested in kids.

And so then we lost Adam and then after everything kind of settled a little bit, family got together and Kyle and them said, "I'd like to do something in his memory."

Well, we had some land over on the backside of our property there and I said, "Okay, we got land, we'll start with that."

We started with nothing, had no money, had a plan in our head, but nothing put down, but once we got started, then we got everybody involved.

We got the drivers involved, they got the sponsors involved, got tracks involved, got NASCAR, and then we finally got the fans.

So they worked over couple of years and then everything just started folding together and coming together and most of these kids, they're not physically or mentally capable of going to YMCA camp or a church camp, so this is their outlet and it's been just phenomenal that we've had people from all over the country, you know, to come, had counselors from all over the world.

When these kids come to camp, they've been kind of segregated.

They think they're the only person that's affected like that.

The mom and dad won't let 'em do this or that, but they come over there, they do everything, you know, they shoot bow and arrows, go bowling, go swimming.

They've never done that, so it opens up a whole new world and it just makes 'em have a different outlook on the world.

- When it comes to his fans, Richard Petty does not forget the people who made his career.

He says he's grateful and has been known to sign autographs for hours until the last fan leaves the racetrack.

You're known for being good to your fans.

You're known for signing autographs, especially for children.

Why is this so important to you?

- Well, you gotta remember, when we first started running, there's probably seven, 8,000 people in the grandstand.

And the deal being, we didn't have sponsors, didn't have names on the side of the car that paid millions of dollars to be involved, so we had to make our living out of the people in the grandstand.

Right early, I said if those guys hadn't have bought a ticket, then the promoter couldn't have paid me for what I'd done.

So it was like every time I wrote Richard Petty would say, "Thank you for buying a ticket."

It just got to be an automatic deal and then once you started doing it, you realized those were the people that was making it work.

And so again, it was just, thank you and it is still a thank you.

- What is the weirdest thing you've ever been asked to autograph?

- We was at the state fair one year and one of the maintenance guys come over and said, "I got something I want you to sign a autograph."

I said, "Go get it."

Come back, had a duck.

[Heather laughing] And he spread the wings out and I signed right across the left wing.

- What's it like writing on a duck?

- Wasn't that easy, but these magic markers do wonders.

That was the strangest thing.

- Who's duck was that?

Do you know who's duck that was?

- It belonged to the state fair.

They had lakes an stuff down there.

He just went over and got it.

- It's value went up, I guess, with the autograph, that's great.

- So I guess he flew away.

- When did people start calling you The King?

When do you remember that catching on?

- That came about somewhere '66/'67.

We was winning a bunch of races.

You know, we was just dominating the sport and there was three or four reporters that kind of got together.

I think they got drinking one night and got talking about, you know, different names for different people and when it came to me, it was kind of a natural King Richard.

Once they wrote it, everybody started picking it up and I'd rather be called that and a lot of things I had been told.

- [Heather] Absolutely.

And for all his years of hurrying around the racetrack, his family describes him as laid back and a caring dad and grandfather, but still a little adventurous behind the wheel.

- He's a kid at heart.

He doesn't realize his age.

Very laid back and kind of go with the flow and easy going, just not ever in a hurry, but when he gets behind the wheel of the car, he still likes to drive fast so we have to slow him down sometimes when he's in the car, he still thinks he has to go fast on the road.

- When I spoke with your youngest daughter, Rebecca, I asked her one of the, she told me that sometimes they have to make sure you're driving the speed limit.

Is that still fun to get behind that car?

- Well, I'm probably not as bad as I used to be because, you know, we'd run a race, we'd run Daytona, you'd run 200 mile an hour and then we'd get in the car and drive home, you know, 65 mile an hour.

I mean, I could get out and walk that fast, you know, so they'd have to slow me down every once in a while, but it's not quite as bad now.

I'm not as racy as I used to be.

- [Heather] But you'll find him working to produce high-quality vehicles at Petty's Garage.

So this is the Petty Garage.

- This is the Petty Garage.

- So this is kind of the next generation of what you're doing.

- [Richard] I used to work on the race cars in here and now we work on street cars to modify 'em, put bigger engines in 'em and do bigger tires, wheels, brakes, suspension, mufflers and all that stuff.

- [Heather] Now these are street legal?

- Yes ma'am, they're street legal.

They put roll bars in some of 'em when the guys really think for racing.

- [Heather] On the same floor where those history-making race cars took shape, there's a new crew creating a new generation of Petty Automotive, and for some of the cars, complete with the famous Petty Blue color.

How did you get that Petty Blue?

- We had a little bitty shop and we got one night we was getting ready to go to the race.

We just build a new car, needed paint and all we had was a little bit of white paint and a little bit of blue paint.

So instead of painting it two-tone, we just poured it all in.

When it got through, we said, "Man, it's in fact a pretty color."

So we remembered how much paint we had.

We went to town and told the guy what the mixture and then we finally got a deal on this spatial number.

It's called Petty Blue and it's number for it and everything, so it was an accident.

- Yeah.

- We're building- - This is beautiful.

- 43 of these.

- Okay.

- Got special paint jobs, special deals, special work.

If you look at it from an angle, you see the sparkle in there?

That's glass.

- [Heather] Oh wow, that's beautiful.

- And out in the sun it really pops out at ya.

- Yeah.

- This is the car, in 1965, NASCAR and Chrysler didn't hit it off real good and we couldn't run the Hemi engine, so we sat out for about six months and went drag racing and found this car somewhere in Chicago or somewhere, I don't know, and the guy brought it in and wanted it fixed back up, so they just completely disassembled.

We'll assemble it just like it was when it was 1965 and then it'll probably be in the museum for a while.

We'll take it, show it around.

- That's fun.

Everywhere you turn at the Petty Compound, there's some item of significance and always a story that Richard Petty tells so well, like this one about his not-so-checkered flag.

- In 1959, my dad and myself were running at Lakewood Speedway, my old dirt in Atlanta, and when the race was over, they flagged me the winner.

But when they got to checking the scorecard, my dad won the race and I ran second, but when they tore the track down, the guys give us the- - [Heather] Oh, really?

- So, I got my first checkered flagged from there, even though I wasn't a winner, so that's what that was for.

- We had talked about the "Cars" characters and it's fun to see them like this.

What was it like hearing yourself on screen and seeing?

- They had a big grand opening at Charlotte Motor Speedway, 30,000 people in the stand, and when I came on, the grandkids didn't pay no attention, but when grandma come on, they all jumped up and hollered 'cause they heard their grandma, [Heather laughing] but anyhow, we was able to find the original car that she wanted and they'd redone that.

- [Heather] Memories of family and racing adorn the walls of the museum, a testament to the prestigious career of the one who is perhaps known as the greatest stock car driver of all time, of the love of his family and a life lived in the fast lane.

- [Richard] Linda, Sharon, Sharon and Lisa.

- [Heather] Now is that Rebecca back there?

No?

Is that Rebecca?

Okay.

That's fun.

- So you had the whole crowd.

- Yeah, oh, that's great.

- Same way in here.

- That's fun.

So do you remember kind of what you were thinking in that moment?

Kind of what was going on?

Do you kind of remember each individual?

- When you bring it back to me, in other words, what do you remember in that scene?

What do you remember here?

But just the what do you remember, it's too much stuff.

My computer don't kick in.

- I have some fan questions.

If you could be anything else other than a race car driver, what would it have been?

- [laughing] I wish I was still a race car driver.

[both laughing] You know, I never thought about doing anything but this because, again, I grew up in this society and this was my life.

And it might be different to other people, but it's normal to me.

So anything I do besides what I do would be abnormal, and at my age, I'm not about to start new ventures, not too far ahead, anyway.

- Now Nicole wants to know what was your favorite meal and who was it prepared by?

- You know, I guess when you really get down to it, we traveled everywhere.

You gotta eat out all the time, all that kind of stuff, but it was always neat to come home, either with Linda or my mother, and eat a bowl of pinto beans, get you some fresh onions, some cornbread and some good fresh milk and I mean, it's not fancy, but that's sort of what you grew up with and that just brought us back to home and probably still yet, that's probably a favorite a meal as I have.

- Now Brad would like to know, when's the last time you drove a Plymouth?

- Wow, they've been outta business a long time.

[both laughing] I guess, you know, I don't know, somewhere in the early '70s I think was the last time.

'71 or '72, '71 I guess.

We traded, we had Plymouths and Dodges, and the Dodge body was better than the Plymouth.

It was a better race car.

So being we had 'em, I just sort of parked all of Plymouths and went through the Dodges and stayed with Dodge for years and years.

- What are you hopeful for, for the future of NASCAR?

- I hope it continues to grow.

Racing's coming back.

I don't know if it'll ever be the level you want it to be because you want it to be the number one deal, but from a spectator standpoint, it's still, I guess, pretty close to being the number one sport in the United States, so it's not a bad place to be.

- What do you do now to mentor rising race car drivers?

- You know, I really don't.

It's hard for me.

One thing about racing, it's hard to tell people how to drive.

Holding a baseball bat or a golf club, they could show you how to approach it and all that.

Racing is not that way.

You can point people in a direction, but they have to accept it and be able to adapt to it.

So, you know, all you do is give 'em much as encouragement as you can, and then every once in a while you say, "Why'd you do that?

That was kind of stupid to do that."

But they learn as they go too.

- Mr.

The King Richard Petty, thank you so much for joining us.

- Yes, ma'am, thank you all for coming.

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