Petty's Prime Years
by Tom Jensen August 06, 2024
Richard Petty’s remarkable success in the late 1960s and early 70s reminds us of just how good he was.
As Petty Enterprises celebrates its 75th anniversary year, a look back in time shows just how incredible the numbers Richard Petty (Class of 2010) posted during his NASCAR Hall of Fame career really were.
Petty earned the nickname “The King” in large part because of his record 200 victories in what is today the NASCAR Cup Series. Only one other driver, David Pearson (Class of 2011), earned triple-digit victory totals winning 105 races.
It took Pearson 574 starts over parts of 28 seasons to win 105 races.
In Petty’s case, exactly half of his 200 race victories came in 279 starts over a six-year period from 1967-72. In a remarkable run, Petty won 36 percent of his starts during that period.
Along with winning 100 races in those six seasons, Petty also won three Cup Series championships and posted 190 top-five and 213 top-10 finishes, along with 57 poles.
Here are some year-by-year highlights of Petty’s amazing six-year performance record.
By winning the spring race at Darlington Raceway in 1967, Richard Petty passed his father, Lee, for all-time NASCAR Cup Series race victories with 55. Richard has held that mark ever since. Photo courtesy of NASCAR Archives & Research Center via Getty Images
1967: 27 wins, 38 top fives, 40 top 10s, 18 poles
Statistically, Petty’s 1967 campaign was the greatest single season in NASCAR history, as he set records for both most wins in a year with 27 and most consecutive victories with 10. Those two marks have never been approached since and almost certainly never will. In a year where Petty won 56.3 percent of his starts, he and his all-conquering No. 43 Plymouth swept both races at Darlington Raceway, Martinsville Speedway and Richmond Raceway. Of the 12,739 laps Petty ran in 1967, he led 5,543, or 44 percent. With numbers like these, Petty easily won his second of a record seven Cup Series championships.
For the 1968 Daytona 500, Petty Enterprises installed a vinyl roof on the iconic No. 43 Plymouth, hoping to gain an aerodynamic advantage. But the experiment failed as the roof began to peel off during the race, forcing a stop to tape it back down. As a result, Petty finished eighth in the Great American Race. Photo courtesy of NASCAR Archives & Research Center via Getty Images
1968: 16 wins, 31 top fives, 35 top 10s, 12 poles
Not surprisingly, Petty was unable to replicate his record results of 1967. Still, his 1968 campaign was rock solid as he finished third in points behind Pearson and Bobby Isaac (Class of 2016). Beginning in early September at Richmond Raceway, Petty went on a hot streak, winning four times in a five-race stretch, all on short tracks. In fact, of Petty’s 16 victories in 1968, 15 came at tracks shorter than a mile. The largest track Petty won at that season was North Carolina Motor Speedway, a 1.00-mile oval where Petty captured the penultimate race of the season, the American 500 in late October.
In 1969, Ford introduced the aerodynamically efficient Torino Talladega, which Ford racers like Richard Petty (No. 43) and Donnie Allison raced at NASCAR’s larger tracks. Photo courtesy of NASCAR Archives & Research Center via Getty Images
1969: 10 wins, 31 top fives, 38 top 10s, 6 poles
For the second year in a row, Petty’s victory total fell off as he finished second in points to Pearson. This was perhaps not surprising as the 1969 season saw Petty Enterprises race Fords for the first time, temporarily ending a long affiliation with the Chrysler Corp. Petty won two of the first three races of the season and finished second in the race he didn’t win, but his early season performance did not keep up for the entire season. That said, this marked the third consecutive year Petty posted double-digit victory totals.
The radical Plymouth Superbirds campaigned by Richard Petty (No. 43) and Pete Hamilton were raced only during the 1970 season. Photo courtesy of NASCAR Archives & Research Center via Getty Images
1970: 18 wins, 27 top fives, 31 top 10s, 9 poles
In terms of race victories, Petty rebounded strongly in 1970, winning 18 races after returning to Plymouth following his one year of racing Fords. This was the height of NASCAR’s aero wars and at the faster tracks, Petty raced the slope-nosed, high-winged Plymouth Superbird. But not all went as planned in 1970. In the spring Darlington race, Petty suffered a terrifying rollover accident that ended up with the car on its roof, dislocating his shoulder and forcing him to miss the next five races. As a result, Petty finished fourth in points, his worst result in a (mostly) full season of competition since 1961. Petty’s Darlington crash led directly to the introduction of the driver’s side window net.
For the second and final time in his career, Richard Petty won more than 20 races in a single season as he captured his third NASCAR championship in 1971. Photo courtesy of NASCAR Archives & Research Center via Getty Images
1971: 21 wins, 38 top fives, 41 top 10s, 9 poles
After three consecutive seasons without a title, “The King” reasserted his NASCAR dominance in 1971, winning his third championship on the strength of 21 race victories, the second-highest single-season victory total of Petty’s illustrious career. Petty set the tone for a successful season by winning the Daytona 500 for the third time. In the final 23 races of the year, Petty won 12 times and finished no worse than fourth in the other races. It was a remarkable display of consistent speed.
NASCAR reduced the Cup Series schedule from 48 races in 1971 to 31 in 1972. It didn’t matter to Richard Petty, as we won the series championship in both seasons. Photo courtesy of NASCAR Archives & Research Center via Getty Images
1972: 8 wins, 25 top fives, 28 top 10s, 3 poles
Another year of change for Petty Enterprises, another championship for “The King.” STP came on board as Petty’s sponsor, adding the bright Day-Glo Red colors to the team’s traditional Petty Blue to form one of the most iconic and recognizable paint schemes in NASCAR history. The team raced both Plymouth and Dodge models during the year, although seven of Petty’s eight wins came in Plymouths. By the end of the year, Petty had become NASCAR’s first four-time Cup Series champion.
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