Patriarch of First Family of Racing Dies at Age 86

The Petty racing family, the only fourth-generation family in major league American sports, lost its patriarch Wednesday when Lee Petty died in Greensboro, N.C. He was 86.

Petty, who had surgery for a stomach aneurysm several weeks ago, died at Cone Hospital.

Dominating stock car racing long before son Richard, grandson Kyle and great-grandson Adam became race drivers, Lee Petty was instrumental in helping develop NASCAR into the most successful motor sports organization in the world, doing it on the race track, not in the board room.

Petty drove in NASCAR’s first event, at Charlotte, N.C., in June 1949, won the first Daytona 500 in 1959 and founded Petty Enterprises, whose drivers won 10 NASCAR Winston Cup championships (Lee won three and Richard won seven).

Taciturn almost to a fault, Lee believed in letting his deeds do the talking. He rarely gave interviews and disliked talking about himself. The irony is that his son, Richard, has been perhaps the most personable and approachable driver in NASCAR history.

Although he drove only 10 full seasons, his total of 55 race wins has been bettered by only six other drivers in NASCAR’s 51 years. His consistency was remarkable. In 429 Winston Cup starts, he had 283 top-five finishes and 376 top-10 finishes, an incredible 88%.

“There wasn’t any better driver than Lee Petty in his day,” said Junior Johnson, a Hall of Fame owner-driver who was a contemporary of Lee and Richard Petty. “There might have been more colorful drivers, but when it came down to winning the race, he had as much as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Lee showed no mercy to Richard, either. When his son appeared to have won his first race in 1959 after narrowly beating his father to the finish line, Lee filed a protest and was declared the winner.

“I would have protested even if it was my mother,” he said at the time. And everyone believed him.

He wasn’t quite as successful in NASCAR’s first official race, June 14, 1949, on a dirt track at the Charlotte Fairgrounds. He drove the family car, a ’46 Buick, to the race, entered it, then rolled it four times. After the race, he drove the battered car home to Level Cross, N.C.

“I wasn’t hurt, but it wasn’t easy trying to explain to my wife what happened,” he said years later.

Petty’s win in the inaugural Daytona 500 was filled with controversy. He and Johnny Beauchamp finished so close it took race officials three days of studying photographs to determine that Petty was the winner.

“When we saw the Daytona Speedway for the first time we knew stock car racing would never be the same,” he said in an interview at Riverside International Raceway in 1977. “We had raced on the beach and thought that was great, but when we saw that big speedway it was something different. Everything changed.”

Petty won championships in what became the Winston Cup in 1954, 1958 and 1959.

An accident Feb. 14, 1961, during a 100-mile qualifying race at Daytona all but ended his driving career. He and Beauchamp collided and both cars flew over a guard rail and landed more than 100 feet away in a parking lot. Petty suffered a punctured lung and broken leg. He drove only a few races afterward and retired in 1964 to run Petty Enterprises and son Richard’s career.

Bill France, president of NASCAR, praised him for “playing a leadership role in the early growth of our sport. He began the great Petty family tradition in NASCAR, and, of course, was the father of one of the sport’s superstars in Richard.

“The family’s active role as competitors continues today with Kyle and even reached a precedent-setting fourth generation over the weekend with Adam’s debut in the Winston Cup series.”

Adam Petty, 19, drove in his first Cup race Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.

After retiring from an active role in the family business, Lee became an avid golfer and was as passionate about the game as he had been about driving. Even though he went to the races with sons Richard and Maurice, the team’s engine builder, he often could be found on the golf course on race day.

“Daddy comes to the races so he can find new courses to play,” Richard said half-jokingly a few years ago.

In addition to the family, Petty Enterprises fielded cars for Hall of Fame drivers such as Joe Weatherly, Buddy Baker, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Tiny Lund, Bob Welborn, Marvin Panch, Darel Dierenger, Jim Paschal and Herschel McGriff.

Survivors include his wife, Elizabeth; sons Richard and Maurice, nine grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and one brother.

A private graveside service for family members only will be held at Level Cross. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations to made to the Level Cross United Methodist Church Building Fund in Randleman, N.C.