CUP: Inman – The Man Behind Richard Petty

Sprint Cup

CUP: Inman – The Man Behind Richard Petty

Dale Inman, who basically defined the position of crew chief, marches into the NASCAR Hall of Fame Friday…

Mike Hembree | Posted January 19, 2012 Charlotte, NC

Fourth In A Series

There was no blueprint for the job when Dale Inman became a NASCAR crew chief in 1958.

There also was no money.

Inman remembers receiving his first paycheck as an employee of Petty Enterprises in 1963. But his connection to one of the most famous operations in the history of motorsports goes much deeper, into the pioneer days of the 1950s and into a racing world unrecognizable from that of today.

“Everybody was green at it in the ’50s,” Inman said. “If you broke something, you went to a bigger piece or bigger radiator or you kept dirt from getting in there. It was a learning curve. I just happened to be on the first of it.

“You can’t believe how crude this thing was when we first started. None of the glamour we see today. When you did it, you weren’t the coolest cat in the alley, either. And there were bootleggers in the area.”

From that hardscrabble start, Inman, now 75, forged a career that resulted in 193 Cup victories and eight Cup championships (seven with Petty and one with Terry Labonte). No crew chief in the history of the sport can approach those numbers, and that goes a long way toward explaining why Inman will be the first crew chief inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame based purely on his success at that position.

Inman will be part of the third class inducted into the hall in a ceremony Friday night in Charlotte, N.C. Other inductees are Glen Wood, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and the late Richie Evans. The ceremony will be broadcast by SPEED at 6 p.m. (ET) Sunday.

Inman grew up less than a mile from the Petty Enterprises shop and was a natural playmate for his cousins, Richard and Maurice, sons of Lee Petty, the family patriarch. As Lee Petty built the family racing operation into a money-making enterprise in the 1950s, he depended on the work contributed by his sons, and Inman pitched in to help.

“There was no television, nothing to pass the time,” Inman said. “We played some football and baseball and had a basketball goal up on an old oak tree. But before we could do any of that, Maurice and Richard had to help get Lee’s race car ready. So I helped. It went on from there.”

Inman, who said Lee Petty was his “trainer,” learned by doing.

“I probably would have never gotten in racing if I hadn’t lived in Level Cross and Lee Petty raced out of Level Cross,” he said.

Inman filled the position of crew chief late in the 1950s and was with the Petty team for the last race on the old Daytona beach-road course in 1958. He also traveled to Daytona with the Pettys for the first Daytona 500 in 1959, a race Lee Petty won.

Inman started working in the parts department of Western Electric in Greensboro, NC when he returned home from military service but was able to travel with the race team on relatively short trips. In 1963, he quit the factory job and went racing full-time.

“I tell people my career wasn’t planned,” he said. “It just happened that it was there in Level Cross. Quitting Western Electric was quite the risk back then. There wasn’t much money in it. It was a big step.”

Inman quickly learned how to build solid race cars and how to run race strategy, forming a template of sorts for crew chiefs who followed.

“When you look back to the ’50s when those guys got their start, people talked more about the owners and drivers than the mechanics,” said Kyle Petty. “When everyone started talking specifically about crew chiefs and defining that position, Dale was already ahead of them. He had been performing that role for the King (Richard Petty) since he was about seven years old. He was a natural leader who simply assumed that crew chief role.

“Dale taught so many guys how to be a crew chief, a leader, an innovator and how to love this sport. Guys like Tony Glover, Steve Hmiel, Mike Beam, Robin Pemberton (now NASCAR vice president of competition) and others who came through Petty Enterprises and then went on to have an impact on the sport. They still are around today making their mark on the sport. So Dale’s impact continues to be felt … and will be for years to come.”

Richard Petty (Left) and crew chief Dale Inman (Right) take a break during a race weekend at Darlington Raceway. (Photo: Richard Petty Private Collection)

Inman’s seasons with Petty produced some of the most remarkable numbers in the history of racing. In the 1967 season alone, Petty won 27 races, including an incredible 10 straight. They won seven Cup championships, and the single title Inman won later with Terry Labonte gives him a total of eight – one more than the King, as Inman kiddingly points out on occasion.

Inman was along for the trip in July 1958 when Petty, barely 21, ran his first NASCAR event – a Convertible Division race in Columbia, S.C. Six days later, Petty ran his first race in what would become the Sprint Cup Series – in Toronto, Canada.

“We grew up together,” Inman said. “I understood his needs. I understood the competition. He was so determined. When the race started, he didn’t think he was going to lose. And it took a man to drive those cars back then.”

When Petty won the 1981 Daytona 500, Inman, who was a key player in the victory, cried in victory lane. And there was a reason beyond the emotion of the moment. He already had decided to leave Petty Enterprises after a lifetime working for the family.

Convinced that he needed to spread his wings and succeed beyond the Petty family connections, Inman did just that, winning the title with Labonte (and for team owner Billy Hagan) in 1984.

He returned to Petty Enterprises in a management position in 1986 and semi-retired in 1998, although he continues to travel with the refurbished Richard Petty Motorsports team, which he serves as a consultant.

FRIDAY: Richie Evans

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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Mike Hembree

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