Racing royalty at T-Road
Toolbox
Tom Herzig - Published: July 29, 2009
NASCAR legend Richard Petty, "The King," will pay a visit to Thunder Road tomorrow night as the track's 50th anniversary season celebration continues. You could fill a few columns just listing Petty's racing exploits, but his impact on stock car racing reaches far beyond his statistics, which include an all-time best 200 wins, seven NASCAR national championships and seven Daytona 500 victories. His hallmark look — cowboy hat, sunglasses, and radiant mustachioed grin — combined with his willingness to meet with race fans for hours at a time, made him NASCAR's greatest ambassador ever. He was selected as "Most Popular Driver" nine times. If you were carving four NASCAR titans into the side of Mount Rushmore, you'd start with him.
After a press conference, Petty will conduct an autograph session from 5:45 until 6:30. When he made a prior stop at Thunder Road during his farewell tour at the end of his active driving career in 1992, he told the crowd, "I happened to be born into the right family at the right place at the right time. If I was starting out today, things would be different."
Petty was front and center in three of the most famous Daytona 500s – "The Great American Race" as Ken Squier made it known. In 1976, Petty and David Pearson collided while racing to the finish line and slammed into the wall. Pearson limped across the stripe to win. In 1979, Petty, with Darrell Waltrip glued to his bumper, was the winning benefactor of the Donnie Allison, Cale Yarborough last-lap wipeout that escalated into a prime-time slugfest with Bobby Allison. Allison, during a Thunder Road visit earlier this season, recalled the incident as "Cale punching my fist with his nose." In 1988, Petty survived a vicious crash that gets viewed often on youtube.com to this day. Perhaps someone will ask him about that in the question/answer session during intermission.
"Knowing Ken all these years, when he said, 'how about coming up to our 50th?' I thought it was appropriate to go back to Thunder Road," Petty said. "I remember going all up through the woods and stuff 10-12 years ago, maybe longer, to get there. They run all kinds of cars (enunciated "cores" down in Level Cross, N.C.) there and I remember they had a heck of a race that night."
The night of Petty's original visit, Lance Ferno won the Late Model feature narrowly besting Dean Gallison, who now serves as ACT and Thunder Road's chief tech inspector.
These days Petty, 72, is still on the go to say the least. Petty merged with the George Gillette-Ray Evernham operation to form Petty Motorsports, which fields Dodges for the NASCAR Sprint Cup teams of Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler, A.J. Allmendinger and Reed Sorenson. Sorenson sports the No. 43 Petty made famous. Petty and Dodge have been synonymous for most of his motorsports career, but there's a lot of speculation about what level of support will or won't be available in the future given that Chrysler Corporation filed for bankruptcy protection in April.
When "King Richard" observed that Thunder Road "runs all kinds of cars" he had yet to experience one of Ken Squier's favorite creations – the "Port-A-Potty" Grand Prix. Four entrants, lucky or unlucky enough to lead their divisional point races, will vie in the human-powered contest that's part soapbox derby, part outhouse. Place your bets on Bud Hill for Late Model driver Jean-Paul Cyr, Sportsman Jimmy Hebert, Street Stock Gary Mullen and Junk Yard Warrior Donnie Yates.
Only 50 points separate the top six Late Model drivers in the battle for the Thunder Road title, which will earn the champion a spot in the ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway September 19. Cyr leads Dave Pembroke by three points, 500-497. Phil Scott (484), Nick Sweet (478), Craig Bushey (454) and Trampas Demers (450) are still in it. Heat races count big time this season. Heat winners are awarded 14 points. Sixth place and back earn only two points.
This Friday night's ACT Tour event at Twin State Speedway is paired with the Northeastern Midget Association (NEMA) Midgets. Owner/promoter Dennis Fleury has significantly refurbished the Claremont facility and is hoping ACT loyalists make the trip down I-91. With his win at Beech Ridge last Saturday, five-time ACT champion Brian Hoar has closed to within 22 points of Tour leader Scott Payea. Joey Pole sits another three points back. ACT's last trip to Twin State was in 2004. Patrick Laperle carried the checkers.
Last week Bobby Santos of Franklin, Mass, whose sister Erica competes regularly on the NEMA Midget circuit, took the Silver Crown main event at O'Reilly Motorsports Park in Indianapolis to become the first driver this season to win in all three USAC divisions, Silver Crowns, Midgets and Sprints. Saturday night at Airborne Speedway in Plattsburgh, 16 year-old Cody Benoit of Fort Myers, FL, son of the late Renegade champion Dan Benoit and grandson of Tiger Sportsman driver Bill Sawyer, finished ninth in his first DIRTcar Modified event.
Round two of the ACT Tri-State Sportsman Series takes the green at Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, NH this Saturday. The Thunder Road finale is set for Thursday August 13. This Sunday at 6 on the Barre high banks it's the $5,000-to-win M&M Beverage Enduro.
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