Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993 TAG: 9304250219
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Will it happen? Maybe, maybe not.
Impossible? No way.
The fact is, Richard Petty has entered the option years of his life. Which way he goes is anybody's guess.
And at this point, politics is as likely as any other scenario.
"I've been approached on a couple of different things," said Petty, sitting in the lounge of his team's hauler at Martinsville Speedway. "We're just in limbo right now. I still got to get my race car going. That's still my No. 1 priority."
It is a major concern because the Petty Enterprises No. 44 Pontiac Grand Prix driven by Rick Wilson is doing no better in 1993 than the No. 43 Pontiac driven by Richard Petty in 1992.
"I think probably we're still trying to get the car set up more for Richard Petty than we are for Rick Wilson," Petty said. "It will handle good for a few laps, but we can't run good on long runs."
Lurking behind this immediate problem is uncertainty about the future. Stirring within Petty is a more fundamental question: Do I want to do this?
Winning races again might convince him to say yes. But it might not.
Right now, however, he is not getting the satisfaction that racing gave him when he was driving.
"What happened," he said, "is there was a whole mixture and you took one of the ingredients out. I used to drive a race car six or eight hours a week. And that changes your whole concept of the week. There's an ingredient out of it."
The public appearances still are a part of his life. He is making about as many as he did in last year's hectic fan appreciation tour. But he appears now as a former driver. Petty is a living piece of history. And this approach to life never has been Petty's - he lives for the present.
It is unlikely that Petty could ever be satisfied resting on his laurels and making appearances at mini-marts like some 1950s television cowboy hawking nostalgia on a memory lane tour.
But politics . . . now that's an arena where he could add luster to the Petty legacy. That's a subject that gets his juices flowing. He has been a Randolph County (N.C.) commissioner for 15 years. And when he starts talking politics, it's hard to shut him up.
If you were in Petty's shoes, which would sound better to you?
This:
"Petty won a record 200 victories as a NASCAR stock car driver and then went on to become a successful car owner."
Or this:
"Petty won a record 200 victories as a NASCAR stock car driver and then went on to become governor of North Carolina."
The point is, when you're already King of your sport, you've pretty much exhausted all possibilities for advancement.
The governor's office would seem to be the best suited for Petty. He has no desire to live in Washington. And as governor, he could be like Ronald Reagan - forcefully setting the tone of his administration, but delegating the messy work to his staff.
There are doubts, to be sure.
"I don't know if that's my bag," Petty said. "I don't know if I've got the personality to do that full time. I don't think I'd have any trouble getting elected. The deal is staying true to what I wanted to do and what the people wanted to do.
"Lynda said I could run for governor if they moved the mansion to Level Cross," Petty quipped. "She said she doesn't want to move."
But this may be a false barrier. Petty's wife is a member of the Randolph County board of education. She knows the political ropes as well as he does. She was devastated when Bill Clinton beat George Bush. And like her husband, she is strident in her conservative Republican views.
"To do it like it should be done, you'd sort of have to put a lot of this other stuff I'm doin' in limbo," Petty said.
"I ain't ready for that yet. But in another two or three years or whatever, you don't know. I'd like to eventually get Kyle to come in and take over" Petty Enterprises.
"He's going to be a lot of the determining factor on that part of it. What I do in five years is going to depend a lot on what he does in five years.
"But there's so many facets out there that are going to change our lives and we're not even looking at them. So you just go with the flow. If it feels good, do it. If it don't feel good, don't do it."
Higher office may never become part of Richard Petty's life. But like Bill Bradley, Tom McMillen, Jack Kemp and other great athletes-turned-statesmen, Petty may decide that it's time to do something else now that his greatest contributions to stock car racing are in the past.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB