While fans may know Richard Petty as the man who won seven Cup Series titles continuing the Petty Racing family domination, his father and 3-time title holder, Lee Petty is the man who actually started it all, laying the foundation of the Petty empire by starting off the family tradition, establishing their racing team. The late great was certainly a pioneer of the sport, but that did not make him impervious to hate comments and vile digs.

Lee Petty’s grandson and popular NBC analyst, Kyle Petty recently revealed the infamous reputation a warehouse got on his grandfather, even prompting the publications at that time to surmise that the old-timer had a massage parlor in Charlotte and was living off of it.

Kyle Petty busts the myth about Lee Petty’s infamous massage parlor in Charlotte

For hardcore NASCAR fans, the Petty Racing Family is one that is deeply rooted in the history of the sport. In fact, Lee Petty was the sport’s first-ever multiple-title holder with three to his name in 1954, 1958, and 1959, with over 50 wins to his name. The late driver was more of your blue-collared racer who had immense knowledge about setting up his racecar, tweaking and tuning his machines, specifically for the early dirt tracks with the great depression molding him to work rigorously and strive to make an earning.

The hard times hardened the racer, prompting him to focus more on racing and making it a full-time commitment. His beginnings are sort of folklore in the community who borrowed a car from his neighbor, hoping to pay him back from his race earnings. Petty quickly found that sustainability was the keyword in racing, realizing that all the fortune that he made from racing was like a sand castle on the beach, which would eventually be taken away in time.

Thus, the old-timer decided to invest his savings into an engineering shop that focused on race spec machines and pieces of equipment. The business thrived with the masses taking the sport to their heart as more and more people wanted to become racecar drivers to earn a living. Soon after, his son rose up to the occasion and took over the business while he was dominating the NASCAR world with an iron fist.

Now, coming to the meat of the matter, the third-generation driver of the family, Kyle Petty recently sat down with his father’s personal secretary Martha Jane Bonkemeyer where they busted the myth about Lee Petty’s supposed massage parlor that he ran behind his warehouse. Petty said, “So he had these warehouses over there and he would just go the mailbox and get the cheque, that’s what it was, he didn’t have a clue what was over there and then it came out in the paper that Lee Petty had a warehouse at Charlotte at the airport that they had a massage parlor in.” 

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Laughing at how absurd and pitiful that sounded, Bonkemeyer added, “He had a man that just looked after it and I dont know that he ever went up there very often to even look at the warehouses, he just got the cheques and he made me keep up with you know if the cheque was on time or if it wasn’t but we didn’t know what was in the warehouse and I dont think Mr. Petty did either.” 

The time when Petty enterprise almost ended, “The King” explains his father’s struggling days

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Born and brought up in one of the most challenging times, Lee Petty had the fire in him, carrying an unwavering spirit that was needed in a rough sport like NASCAR. According to a Speedsport report, Kyle Petty said, “Yes, he was tough, but he was fair. You have to always tether the word fair to him. He was the poster child for someone that grew up in the Depression in rural America, in rural North Carolina.” 

But the patriarch needed more than toughness to hang in with the best, and he desperately needed a car that could get him across the finish line. Richard Petty explained during a long-ago press conference at Daytona Int’l Speedway about his father’s initial three-quarter mile NASCAR race in Charlotte Speedway dirt track that could’ve ended Petty’s great American dream in a flash.

“Somehow or another, he talked one of his buddies (Gilmer Goode) into letting him run his car in the Charlotte race,” Richard Petty said. “So we left the service station there in Greensboro and it was my dad, mother, brother and myself and headed out for Charlotte. We went to a Texaco there in Charlotte, put the car on a lift, took the muffler off, changed the oil and put the No. 38 on the side of the car.”

He added further, saying, “Halfway through the race, he flipped it and tore the doors off. The car was torn all to pieces and they had to go back the next day and put it on a flatbed truck. We had to hitch a ride back home with our uncle. How he explained it to the guy he borrowed the car from, I don’t know. That was almost the end of Petty Enterprises right there.”

But then the driver found his winning formula and never had to look back, leaving just a trail of dust for his competition as he blazed the trail for his future generation.

READ MORE: Richard Petty’s Personal Secretary Reveals Double-date Stories With The King & Her Hilarious “Claim To Fame” With Son Kyle