From AutoWeek.com in July.
Dream season: Richard Petty set NASCAR records in 1967 that will never be broken
The King's season for the ages included 10 consecutive wins, 27 total
It’s a generally accepted axiom that all records are made to be broken. It’s also true that there are exceptions to every rule.
Richard Petty, who turned 80 on July 2, is one of the exceptions.
Among the Petty records set in a 34-year driving career are two that almost certainly will stand the test of time—and both were recorded 50 years ago, in the 1967 NASCAR season. Petty won an astonishing 27 races (of 48 total run) and, more remarkably, won 10 in a row. Let that sink in for a moment. Yes, 10 in a row.
Across the 68-year history of NASCAR’s top series, no one else has come close to 10 straight. The next best number is five straight and, perhaps not surprisingly, Petty is one of the drivers who hit that figure. He won five in a row in 1971, as did Bobby Allison. The idea of scoring 10 straight wins in the current NASCAR landscape is almost comical. In 2017, only one driver — Jimmie Johnson — has won as many as two straight.
It’s tempting to make the claim that Petty had such a bonanza of a season in 1967 because he had little competition. That would be a dangerous road to take. Among Petty’s competitors that season were Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Fred Lorenzen and Mario Andretti. A racing murderers row.
The Petty team hit on the right combination at the right time — and with the right car. With future Hall of Fame crew chief Dale Inman leading the charge for his cousin and future Hall of Fame driver, Petty slammed the competition over a seven-week stretch from Aug. 12 to Oct. 1. Every win was scored in the same car, a bright blue 1966 Plymouth Belvedere.
The streak began at tiny Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and it ended in the same state, at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The run included only one win on a superspeedway, at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina Sept. 4. Petty had more than his share of troubles at Darlington over the years, but one of his three wins there was at the heart of his streak.
Petty looked back across the years and said the first six or seven races in the streak “... weren’t that big of a deal because we were just winning races and going to the next one. We were all about winning races, so we just looked at things as normal.”
Petty said the streak gained significant attention at win No. 9 when Chrysler flew him to New York City for a PR tour, promoting the wins and the winning Plymouth. Ironically, the car that carried Petty through the streak wasn’t even a part of the team’s stable at the season’s start. The team built a 1967 Plymouth to open the schedule, but it ran poorly. “We ran it four times and had trouble with it every time,” Petty said. “I told Dale, ‘That car ain’t got no personality. Put it in a corner.’ ”
So Inman and the Lee Petty Engineering (the name was later changed to Petty Enterprises) team refurbished the 1966 car, and performance immediately improved. “It was phenomenal the way it worked,” Petty said. “Unbelievable.”
Although the Petty team, housed in a facility next to team patriarch Lee Petty’s home in Level Cross, N.C., was one of the best of the era, it was laughably small compared to today’s Cup teams. Only eight men worked on the team’s cars, and they built and refurbished cars during the week and also pitted the car during races. “They did it all,” Petty said. “We won a race, we took the car home, we got it ready for the next race. We used the same car over and over. It was just the way it was done then.”
The 10 victories, scored from the 37th race of the year to the 46th, weren’t exactly barn burners. Petty won four by at least three laps, and none of the finishes was close enough to cause unusual excitement. “The remarkable thing was we had the same car all along,” Inman said. “To keep the car under him for 10 races in a row and win them, I thought that was a feat.”
Inman said the team disassembled the car after every race. “We were one of the first teams to take a car completely apart after every race,” he said. “We had a table where we rebuilt the whole front end. We disassembled the chassis and did body work if needed.” Inman said the same ’66 Plymouth won 13 races in 1966. “It was a workhorse,” he said.
Why did the streak end? Petty’s luck ran out. Seeking an 11th straight win Oct. 15 in Charlotte, he was racing against, among others, 11 cars entered by Ford Motor Co., which hoped to put a stop to the streak. Paul Goldsmith blew a tire early in the race, and Petty hit his spinning car, ripping the right-side door from Petty’s Plymouth. The team made repairs (Inman remembers having to remove the remainder of the battered door so he could change the right rear tire), but Petty’s engine blew 66 laps from the finish of the 334-lap race, and he finished 18th. Buddy Baker won the race — his first Cup victory — in a Dodge.
The streak was at an end.
“It was just another race that we didn’t win,” Petty said. “You have to figure that, in a couple of the races we won, we got far behind and made up the laps. Some of the races just came to us. That one didn’t.” Inman said Petty’s competitors “sometimes beat themselves. In some cases, we didn’t have the best car, but we wound up finishing and they didn’t.”
Petty’s streak attracted considerable media attention and played a key role in lifting NASCAR’s national profile. Earlier in the ’67 season, Petty won the spring race at Darlington, his 55th victory. That win broke a tie—with his father, Lee, for the most victories in Cup history. Of course, over time, Richard established another record: 200 Cup victories.
“I enjoyed the 10 in a row,” Inman said. “I don’t think that will ever be beat. I don’t think the 200 wins will, either."
