THROWBACK: When Richard Petty Drove an Illegal Car at the Charlotte Motor Speedway

Recently, NASCAR revealed a brand new and stricter tier system for penalties. This largely pertains to any unauthorized changes to the Next Gen cars. However, if we rewind the clock back to a few decades earlier, the sport was not as strict. Had the present-day rules been in effect in those days, poor old Richard Petty would have had a hard time.

Around the 1980s, Petty was on the verge of an eye-watering 200 wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. The #43 driver was just a handful of wins away from the record-shattering milestone.

In the Cup Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, he managed to best most of his rivals. In the process, he stormed to the 198th win of his career, but that win was not without controversy.

Then, a situation arose after the officials decided to inspect his car. Suffice to say, there was a lot going on under the hood of that Pontiac. First and foremost, the left-side tires were located on the right side of the car. This is because the team wanted to extract as much performance as possible.

What was the big thing that worked against Richard Petty?

However, the bombshell dropped once the officials popped the hood of the car. Back then, the engine had to be 358 cubic inches, but the Petty Enterprises car’s engine was 381 cubic inches. As a result, NASCAR fined the team $35,000 and docked 104 points. Interestingly, Richard Petty was allowed to keep his win and register his 198th triumph.

A week later, the sport laid down a new rule about the engines. The rule stated that if such a situation happened again, the team would be suspended for 12 weeks or 3 races. Of course, one could argue that that win should not count as a win, because the car was illegal. However, NASCAR did not see it that way and counted it in the statistics.

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