Waterbury, VT – Richard Petty, stock car racing’s all-time Champion, will
appear at Barre’s Thunder Road as part of the track’s season-long 50th
Anniversary Celebration on Thursday Night, July 30th. The 7-time National
Champion, and record 7-time Daytona 500 mile winner, holds the record of 200
major wins in what is now the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. His closest rival
on that win list is David Pearson at 105, with Cale Yarborough and Bobby
Allison tied for third at 84.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Petty is considered the cornerstone of the sport’s popularity and growth.
Thunder Road’s history parallels the Petty legend. The Level Cross, North
Carolina native won his first race in 1960 on a half-mile dirt track in
Charlotte, North Carolina. The Petty name still dominates the sport 17 years
after he retired as a driver. Many consider his 27 wins–including 10 in a
row in 1967–the greatest single season performance in NASCAR history.
Petty scored his final checkered flag in a dramatic duel by less then 2 feet
over Cale Yarborough at Daytona in 1988. He continued in active competition
until 1992 and has maintained a Petty Racing Team since. This year he is
entering a car for the Indianapolis 500 with John Andretti driving.
“Richard set the bar not only as a driver but as the sport’s spokesman and
still does today”, said Thunder Road co-owner Ken Squier. “No one made
themselves so available to fans or to the press as Richard. You could find
him signing autographs hours after a race. He even created a signature that
took an extra moment to write as he wanted to look a fan in the eye, and
thank them for their support”, said Squier.
Bobby Allison, Petty’s major adversary for over 20 years, will also appear
at Thunder Road on Thursday night June 18.
<\/p>\n
One of the most exciting stars currently racing, Tony Stewart will actually
compete at Barre in the 150 lap CARQUEST Governor's Cup, Thursday June 25th.
Thunder Road commences its 2009 campaign Sunday, May 3 with The 11th annual
Merchant’s Bank 150 as part of a two-day kick-off with the Annual Barre Race
Car Show and judging on Barre's Main Street Saturday, May 2nd.
Season tickets are available by contacting Thunder Road at 802.244.6963.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Waterbury, VT – Richard Petty, stock car racing’s all-time Champion, willappear at Barre’s Thunder Road as part of the track’s season-long 50thAnniversary Celebration on Thursday Night, July 30th. The 7-time NationalChampion, and record 7-time Daytona 500 mile winner, holds the record of 200major wins in what is now the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. His […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-canadian-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}