This was published on August 12, 2012 in the Scranton (Pa) Times Tribune :
Petty reflects on record 10-race winning streak 45 years ago
BY SCOTT WALSH (STAFF WRITER)
Published: August 12, 2012
Associated Press - 1966
Richard Petty gestures to his crew during a pit stop at the race in Charlotte in October 1966. Exactly one year later at Charlotte, Petty's NASCAR-record 10-race winning streak came to an end. The streak began 45 years ago today - Aug. 12, 1967 - at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Racing in NASCAR in 1967 was much different than it is today in the Sprint Cup Series.
Back then, it was known as the Grand National Series. The schedule was composed of 48 races and they were run on all kinds of tracks - dirt, paved, quarter-mile, half-mile, superspeedway.
There was a barnstorming feel to it, too. Teams would race on a Thursday or Friday at one track, then pack up and head to another track to race Saturday or Sunday.
"That was the deal then," Richard Petty recalled last week at Pocono Raceway. "When the race was over, it was over, whether we won or lost. All we did was go to the next race track and get ready to try to win the next one we were running."
That season, no matter where or when they raced, Petty and his team proved their versatility and won.
He captured the second of his record seven championships in 1967, finishing with 18 poles, 27 wins, 38 top fives and 40 top 10s.
And, for one remarkable two-month stretch, no other driver could beat him.
Ten races. Ten consecutive victories - a NASCAR-record winning streak that likely will never be matched.
It began 45 years ago today - Aug. 12, 1967 - at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C. Petty started on the pole and led all 250 laps to win by three laps over Jim Paschal.
"It doesn't seem like 45 years. Yet it doesn't seem like yesterday either," Petty said. "It was just one of them deals where everything fell together. You didn't do anything different than what you'd been doing and nobody else did anything different. It all just accumulated for two months."
Just how dominant was Petty during the streak? There were a total of 2,931 laps run during the 10 races. Petty led 1,781 of them or 60.76 percent.
After his victory at Winston-Salem, Petty headed to the half-mile dirt track at Columbia, S.C., Speedway on Aug 17. He started on the pole and led 29 of 200 laps - including the final 12 - to win by one lap over John Sears. Then on Aug. 25 at Savannah, Ga., Speedway, another half-mile dirt track, Petty started on the pole, led all 200 laps and won by five laps over Elmo Langley.
Up next was the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina on Sept. 4 (Labor Day). Petty started on the pole and led 345 of 364 laps, including the final 236, to win by five laps over David Pearson. It was the only Southern 500 win of his career, and his performance was so dominant that his famed blue No. 43 Plymouth from that race sits in the Darlington Raceway Stock Car Museum.
Win No. 5 in the streak came Sept. 8 at the 4/10-mile Hickory, N.C., Speedway. Two days later, at the half-mile Virginia State Fairgrounds dirt track in Richmond, Petty started second and led the final 163 of 300 laps (177 total) and beat Dick Hutcherson to make it six straight wins.
On Sept. 15, Petty won again, this time at Beltsville, Md., Speedway. He led 171 of 300 laps from the pole and beat Bobby Allison by two laps. On Sept. 17, he started on the pole at Orange Speedway in Hillsboro, N.C., led 88 of 167 laps and beat Hutcherson to make it eight in a row.
Victories at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia on Sept. 24 and North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina on Oct. 1 gave Petty 10 straight checkered flags.
Petty said he and his team didn't dwell on the streak. Their focus simply was on winning the next race.
However, as the streak unfolded, fans and the media began to take notice.
"You can imagine how big a deal it would be today," Petty said. "Back then, we were still a Southern sport.
"But by doing what we were doing, we got publicity all over the world. I don't know when it was, but some guy from Canada sent me a clipping out of the paper. The headline said, 'Petty runs second.' It never said who won the race. So we were getting publicity - good, bad or indifferent - just because it was something nobody had ever done."
Alas, the winning streak finally came to an end at Charlotte on Oct. 15. Petty started fifth, but had his day end after 268 of 334 laps due to engine failure. He finished 18th as Buddy Baker won the race.
"All good things come to an end," Petty said. "And if you stay long enough, all bad things come to an end, too."
Since then, no one has come close to matching the streak. In 1971, Petty did win six races in a row and Bobby Allison five straight. In NASCAR's modern era (since 1972), four straight races are the most drivers such as Darrell Waltrip (1981), Dale Earnhardt (1987), Harry Gant (1991), Bill Elliott (1992), Mark Martin (1993), Jeff Gordon (1998) and Jimmie Johnson (2007) have been able to win.
"To win two in a row is tough today," Petty said. "The way it is now, it's going to be an almost untouchable record."
Contact the writer: swalsh@timesshamrock.com
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updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
