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.
