The King of NASCAR: The man behind the wheel

"I was born in the west room up there, and my brother was born up there, so this is the family homeplace, and it's right here beside the shop and the museum, so it’s all been here after 86 years," he said. 

It’s the home where Richard Petty's father, Lee Petty, began building his race cars in 1949. Richard was right in the middle of it.

“The first cup race I went to, I was 11 years old," Richard Petty recalled. 

“My brother and myself and my cousin Dale Inman, we started working on cars when I was 12 or 14 years old...I mean when I was 16 years old, I drove a car to California and Daddy raced it and I drove it back home," he continued. 

In the Lee Petty days, it was all about surviving the race. 

“The accelerator broke on his car, and he come in and we got a piece of wire and tied it to the carburetor and knocked a hole in the firewall," Richard Petty recalled. "He’d pull (the wire) in the straightaway and let go in the corners.”

The future king…was learning from the best. 

Lee Petty retired in the early 60s and built the foundation for what was coming next.

“He was the first to win three championships," Richard said. "And I think he won 54 or 55 races, and until I came along, nobody beat his record." 

Richard tore up record books. He said work ethic among the entire team was the key. 

“If you hear them talk about burnout, then they’re not dedicated. If you’re dedicated, you don’t talk about time. We worked 10 hours, 48 hours, whatever it took. Nobody said let's sit down and rest a while. You didn’t do that," he said. 

There was another person who shared that work ethic - Richard’s wife Linda, who knew once they started dating, it would be a wild ride. 

“The car I picked her up in had been a race car," Richard remembered. 

“In the car, we had a bucket seat, and I would put a rim next to me and a cushion of some sort and she would hold on to the bars. I finally got a car with seats," he smiled. 

A NASCAR driver’s schedule is non-stop. But The King said Linda was the rock of the family.

“She would always ask me, 'When are you gonna quit?' And I would always say when I quit having fun," he said. 

There were scary times the couple had to get through too. 

“We had a bad wreck in Daytona and it knocked me out," Richard recalled. "And I was in the hospital and she came in, and I could see she had been crying, and she wiped her tears away and leaned over me and said, 'Are we still having fun?'”

Richard chuckled when he remembered that moment but said ultimately, he had a job to do. 

“We had different responsibilities. My responsibility was to go out and make enough money for the family to operate," he said. “She paid all the bills and took care of the kids. So we really lived three different lives. I had a life, she had a life, and we had our life together. I always told her - we were together for 55 years before I lost her, but we probably lived together for 25.”

Richard retired in the early '90s, passing the torch to his son Kyle Petty. 

Right out of the gate, hopes were high.

Kyle made his Major League stock car debut at 18 and won the very first race he entered, becoming the youngest driver to win a major.  

But he still had big shoes to fill...and by that time, the Petty empire was a lot to juggle with both father and son on the track. 

“It's hard to serve two masters," Richard said. "I took what I was doing over here and didn’t help him too much, because I couldn’t give him everything. But I should’ve quit then and put all my effort into what he was doing and I think we both would’ve been successful.”

But then Richard Petty’s grandson Adam came on the scene with big dreams and big shoes to fill.

“My father, then me, Kyle...but Adam was supposed to be the 4th generation and everyone was expecting Adam to take over Petty Enterprises," Richard said. “But the Good Lord didn’t see fit. This is not the way it was going to be.”

Adam died in a practice session for the Busch 200 race. He was only 19.

Before his death, while touring a camp for special needs kids, Adam had a revelation. 

“Adam looked around and said, 'Why can’t we do something like this?' I mean here’s a 19-year-old kid thinking about that," Richard recalled about his grandson. 

That was the beginning of Victory Junction. Built for Adam…lasting for the kids.

“We’re celebrating 20 years this year and that’s served about 40 or 50 thousand kids that wouldn’t get to go to a normal camp," Richard said. “We have a hospital at the camp that can help them with any problems they have and we take care of any diseases or handicaps they may have. It’s been great.”

The King of NASCAR said when you ask him about the legacy of a family who was the centerpiece of the sport for 75 years…the answer might surprise you.

“Petty Enterprises and racing will go away. Something else will take its place," he said. "But Victory Junction will be here and be looked at as part of the Petty legacy.”