Adam Petty: NASCAR Mourns It's Future
Dateline: 05/15/2000There are some names in sports that automatically bring an image of greatness. Gretzky, Lombardi, Nicklaus and most of all, Petty. Never in the history of sports has one name ruled over a sport for so long.
Lee Petty was involved in NASCAR's very first race and collected 54 wins and three Championships before handing the reigns over to his son Richard Petty. "The King" collected another 200 wins and 7 more Championships before he retired. His son, Kyle Petty, continues to uphold the Petty racing name with eight more wins of his own.
Collectively, the Petty family has won 262 NASCAR Winston Cup races and ten Championship titles. The Petty name is unrivaled across all of sport in it's legendary status.
Kyle's son, Adam, was poised to carry the Petty name deep into the twenty-first century. At only nineteen years of age Adam was steadily gaining experience on the Busch circuit and was scheduled to make five NASCAR Winston Cup starts this season to gain some experience while still maintaining his rookie of the year eligibility. At Texas Motor Speedway earlier this year Adam became the first fourth-generation athlete in any sport in history to compete at the highest level.
This bright young man was gradually learning the ropes of NASCAR. Wrestling a 3400 pound racecar around an oval for four hours on a 100 degree Sunday afternoon is hard. Natural talent will only get you so far, the rest of the picture is painted with experience. Adam had plenty of natural talent and was learning more and more about his car, his team and himself every week.
Last Friday the unthinkable happened. Apparently Adam's throttle stuck as he ran up the backstretch during practice at New Hampshire International Speedway.
The future of NASCAR was changed in an instant.
Auto racing will survive without Adam. NASCAR will go on. The Petty family will find a way to go on. But all will be a little emptier without this genuinely nice guy with the "9000 tooth" smile.
