Toughness and class of The King

Despite our collective mixed feelings about the economic viability and the authenticity of some of the exhibits of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, it was still mighty cool to see the well deserved pride and joy of those being inducted. It was cool to see former competitors enjoy each other's company.

Much has been said the sport needs new "rivalries" as in a good guy vs a bad guy. Make Kyle and Kurt angrier. Stoke Harvick so he'll go off. Feed Smoke's surliness. Etc. But a rivalry of old was a rivalry of gold - The King and The Silver Fox.

From Randy Murphy 's collection

Not only do they have respect for each other now - but they also had it then. Check out this article from The Sumter Daily Item I found today from about Pearson's win in the 1970 Rebel 400. Bear in mind less than 24 hours earlier, The King had just gone through the worst wreck of his career and an overnight hospital stay.

Dargan Watts photo

Ron Wetzler 's photo

Putting the thoughts of his own injuries and wrecked cars aside, Petty made it a point to call and congratulate David on his win. THEN he turned his focus to his own team - namely to find the whereabout of his boots!

I think that tremendous respect (and I think a lot of it began in the 60s when David drove for Cotton and both ran the entire circuit for Chrysler) is one reason Richard was so miffed the year that David set him him up at Daytona by lifting, causing Richard to pass thinkling there was a mechanical problem, then getting slingshotted by David for the win.

That was a Firecracker race, wasn't it, Chase? My memory is getting fuzzier.

Back to your premise... we could sure use some rivalries like that today.

In baseball, you always knew it would be a barnburner when either the White Sox or Red Sox played the hated NY Yankees. All sports prosper and get more attention with good rivalries and they didn't come any better than David and Richard.

1974 Firecracker - Video and MRN call are on YouTube.

That race also had the only official (to my knowledge) tie in a NASCAR "premier series" race. Buddy Baker and Cale Yarborough hit the finish line at exactly the same time.

Sports Illustrated featured the race in their July 15, 1974 issue. I printed a copy of the article to PDF, and you can read or download it from my Scribd account here (can't get it to embed properly at RR):

http://www.scribd.com/doc/125150748/1974-Firecracker-400

Here it is on SI's archival site:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1088768/2/index.htm

And here it is as originally published in the magazine (page 20):

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/edb/reader.html?magID=SI&issueDate=19740715&mode=reader_vault

Very nice! Thanks. Check out my page here on the site to find another picture of Richard and David together taken at Columbia Speedway in 1964.

I believe this is the one you are referring to? ( Team SC Midlands gallery)

That is the one Chase. Columbia Speedway. It's my pic but I guess it went on TSCM's page. Thanks for posting.

I wrote this forum post here earlier in 2013. I added to my original text and posted it today to my blog. Thought timing was right with it being Darlington week. Also thought you might want to see the revised post about this rivalry of old and one of gold:

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-king-v-silver-fox-race-hard-with.html

Thanks for bringing this post back to the forefront Chase. Richard and David had quite the rivalry and quite the respect for each other. Ask me sometime about the interview I did with David Pearson on my radio show back in 1994 when that Daytona 500 race in 1976 came up. I can't repeat here what Pearson said but believe me, we were not on time delay during my live show and he said one word that went over the air which my station got upset about! They waited for weeks to see if the FCC would come after us, but I guess no one turned us in because we never heard anything.

To show you how fans forget, in 1994, I was doing a television series for SportsSouth and was at Charlotte for the 600 to get interviews. I parked in the infield and started towards the pit with the camera crew. Getting out of a car and suddenly walking beside me was David Pearson. We walked by a ton of fans and not onerecognized, or at least acknowledged David Pearson, which I thought was unbelieveable. I am very happy to see that he is getting recognition again and has been for some time. He and Richard truly helped to thrust NASCAR forward.

Thanks again.

Thanks for posting the link to the expanded blog piece. I have alway been a huge Richard fan and David won the first race I attended - dirt, of course - at Richmond in March 1964. Hard to top that rivalry that was built on trust for each other.

The key word in your report is "R E S P E C T". Both men had it.