Richard Petty - 200 Wins or Just 199?

It's been quite a while since I stirred a pot. Today I was thinking for some reason about the fact that NASCAR used to count qualifying race wins in a driver's Grand National/Cup win total. We all know that the Daytona 500 has twin qualifying races. To the best of my knowledge, NASCAR stopped counting a win in one of those events in a driver's total around the 1967 season. I remembered that Charlotte also used to run qualifying races for the World 600. I was curious to see if Richard Petty had been credited with a win by NASCAR in any of the qualifying races. I found that on May 21, 1961, Richard is credited with winning the 67 lap Charlotte Qualifier #1 for the following week's World 600 over Ralph Earnhardt in a 19 car field. 55 cars actually started the World 600 the following week. Do you think that 19 car preliminary qualifying race win ought to count as one of the 200 Grand National/Cup wins in the King's resume? What really gets interesting is that on the exact same date - May 21, 1961, that Richard is credited with the Charlotte win, Lloyd Dane is also credited with a Grand National/Cup win for his victory that day all the way across the country on the Riverside, California road course. Just food for thought.

That gets filed under, "It was the same for everybody." Back then, they did count them, so they count. - That's what she said! And its true. No controversy there. Richard did win a convertible race - but its recorded as a win in that series and not as part of his 200 Grand National / Cup win total.But I do like that you tried to give us a trivia noogie.