“More of a Show Than a Race” – Richard ‘King’ Petty Once Brutally Condemned NASCAR for Losing “Pure Racing” Roots in Bid to Satisfy ‘Big Money’

A lot has changed over nearly half a century’s worth of racing in NASCAR. Gone are the days when the guys would take out their stock cars on the beach track at Daytona to race. Now we have powerful purpose-built cars with tight regulations in place. If any man would know better how the sport has changed over the years, that would be none other than the King of NASCAR.

During an interview, back in 2016, the legendary Richard Petty said, “technologies have been the biggest change. We used to work here and everything we did was off experience… Over a period of time, we got engineers and we got computers, NASCAR is tightened up the rules.”

“Everything else is different. My deal is, the money come into it, the technology come into it and it’s more of a sport, it’s more of a show than it used to be a race.”

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“Nobody worried about showtime, you know being correct in English or doing anything. Then came all the TV and all the publicity, we’re in the show business, even though we as Richard Petty Motorsports want to be in the racing business.”

What else did Richard Petty say about the good old racing days?

Richard Petty was a legend back in his glory days, one of the few to have hauled seven championships during his career as a legendary NASCAR driver. However, his time in the sport was starkly different from what it is today.

During the same interview, Petty also spoke about the family atmosphere that existed back in the day. He said, “You go to the race, and all the drivers, and drivers’ wives or girlfriends they all parked in the infield. they didn’t have a special place for them and over a period of time they kinda put em in a place.” Petty also stated that drivers back in the day used to sleep in the back of the track to travel to another race venue, unlike today, when drivers can afford their own private jets.

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One can only imagine how life used to be back in those days. Sadly we cannot turn back time, but at least we can live with stories like these told by none other than the greatest of all time of the sport.