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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: The King Is Back, Sort Of
For us old-school types, once upon time, Richard Petty was NASCAR, a man who defined the sport...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted June 22, 2009   Sonoma, CA
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)
If you’re under 40, the name of Richard Petty probably doesn’t mean much more than a historical footnote, a guy in dark glasses and a big old cowboy hat who once won a lot of races as a driver.

But for us old-school types, once upon time, Petty was NASCAR, a man who defined the sport through his domination on the track and his personality off of it. Petty holds a slew of records that will never be approached, let alone broken: 200 career Sprint Cup victories as a driver, including 27 in a single season, 10 of which came in a row.

As feared as his Petty blue Plymouths were in the mid-1960s, Petty was a promoter’s dream, someone who tirelessly autographed every program, t-shirt or model car at every track. He is almost singlehandedly responsible for NASCAR establishing a reputation for being a fan-friendly sport way back before it was fashionable.

Those are but two of the reasons he is still referred to today as “The King.”

The first time I ever met Petty, he was in the back of a hauler with a couple of boxes of Sharpies, making sure he got the best ones for the wave of autographs he inevitably would sign that day.

I asked him if he knew how many autographs he’d signed. He never looked up, but just smiled and said, “How big’s the national debt?”

But Richard Petty the car owner never achieved a fraction of the success that Richard Petty the driver did. Some say he wouldn’t pay for top talent like a Hendrick or a Roush or a Childress would, others said he simply didn’t keep up with the times. The truth was probably a little of both.

Petty Enterprises last won a Cup race in 1999 at Martinsville Speedway with John Andretti behind the wheel. Late last year, the team shut down entirely, with only a handful of people moving over to Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Team majority owner George Gillett wanted Petty as part of the deal, a deal which included renaming the team Richard Petty Motorsports, or RPM for short.

And on Sunday, when Kasey Kahne improbably drove an RPM Dodge to victory in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway, he put Richard Petty back in victory lane for the first time in a decade.

Make no mistake, this wasn’t Petty Enterprises. Kahne’s car wasn’t Petty blue or carrying the fabled No. 43. In fact, it was sponsored by Budweiser, something the teetotaling Petty would have never allowed when he ran PE. And at RPM, Petty has no management responsibilities, other than being a kindly figurehead to meet with sponsors and partners. Asked to describe his new role earlier this season, Petty said simply, “I just show up at the track and do my thing.” The Richard Petty thing.

Still, even if this wasn’t Petty Enterprises winning, it was damned good to witness The King in victory lane again.

“To see Richard Petty in the winner's circle with us today, that was big,” said Kahne, who had never finished better than 23rd on the Infineon road course before. “That was a neat deal, and exciting to see him up there. I don't think coming in today he expected the No. 9 to win. I don't know if anybody did. You know, I think that was really cool to see Richard in victory lane with us, and it's a big deal.”

Petty himself was pleased, too, in a Petty kind of way. “I guess this is win No. 1,” he said. “ … I think going in on Monday morning, I think all of us will be welcomed home a little bit more than what we have been for the last few weeks.”

And he all but admitted he didn’t much to do with the victory, and he’s OK with that.

“After I quit driving in '92 then I was not involved in the cars near as much, and over a period of years you got to be more of an owner than you was a mechanical deal or telling the drivers what to do or whatever,” said Petty. “So you'd usually give it up to the crew chiefs and the drivers to do what they want. They can go to the engineers, figure out what it is. So all they want me to do is bring in money so they can go racing.”

And with that came a large round of laughter.

Welcome back, King. The sport missed you, even if you never really left.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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