So, finally, a kind but busy man with an empire to run had despaired of getting any work done with the endless stream of visitors, and he arranged for the fans to have a place to go. He converted an old furniture store into a showroom to house some stuff he thought visitors would like to see-like seven championship trophies, Chrysler Hemi engines, a selection of his race cars from over the years, and pictures of the man himself, posing with movie stars and presidents. He hired some local people to run it. Five bucks to get in-that ought to cover the light bill and the clerks’ wages, and whatnot. Then The King went back to all the other million things that clamored for his time.
The Number Three Pilgrims filed into the museum, which on a weekday morning wasn’t crowded, and Cayle’s impression of a homey and unassuming visitor center was confirmed. Here, she thought, was the museum equivalent of making your mashed potatoes and pork chops stretch to feed a crowd of unexpected dinner guests. A line of race cars, each surrounded by a knee-high picket fence led the visitor down memory lane, a reminder that Richard Petty was truly a king in the dynastic sense: that is, he was just one cog in a long succession. Four generations of Pettys had driven the NASCAR circuit, an amazing achievement in a sport just over fifty years old.
Bekasu studied the framed photographs that lined the walls. “Here’s a picture of Lee Petty, when he was racing back in the fifties,” she remarked to Harley, who was reading over her shoulder. “Having a father in the business must have helped young Richard get started.”
“I guess it did,” said Harley. “It’s just-” He shook his head and started to walk away.
“Just what?” said Bekasu, hurrying to keep up with him. “Nobody else is listening. What were you going to say?”
Harley turned back to study Lee Petty’s old race car from the fifties-truly a stock car, one that its owner could have driven to the race track, on the race track, and then to the grocery store afterward. Not like today’s seven-hundred-horsepower monsters with the paste-on headlights, the treadless tires and glassless windows, and the doors permanently welded shut. Seeing that old car reminded Harley of his own father’s obsession with racing. The self-made man back in the early days before engineers and wind tunnels and product placement-those old-time drivers had done it all, and all the money they’d spent on those cars wouldn’t buy you a fist-sized decal’s worth of advertisement on the last-place driver’s trunk in today’s sport.
“Racing was almost a one-man operation in the old days,” he told her. “Lee Petty would have worked on this car himself. Modified it. Tested it. Driven it in races in whatever time he could steal from a day job and a wife and kids. And Lee Petty won the first ever Daytona 500, you know. Daytona. Can you imagine the incredible force of will it would have taken to succeed under those circumstances? How much you would have to want to win?”
“Oh, men always want to win,” said Bekasu, still looking at the genial face of Lee Petty. The determination must have been buried beneath that affable exterior. “Men can’t even lose jurisdiction over the remote control for the television. I don’t see why racing should be any more cutthroat than, say, a law practice, which is my family’s profession.”
“Well, maybe it isn’t,” said Harley. “We don’t have any lawyers in my family and I try to avoid them, myself. But I do know about fathers and sons in the racing business. It would put you in mind of a deer herd. The young buck may have been sired by the old stag, but that doesn’t mean the father is going to step down to his successor without a fight. I’ll tell you a story about the young Richard Petty. When he was first starting out, summer of 1958 that would have been, he drove up to Canada to compete in his first Grand National race. So there’s Richard, a few pounds heavier back then, but short on experience, whizzing around the track but a lap back from the front runners, when all of a sudden two cars come up on him-Cotton Owens is driving one, and Lee Petty is driving the other. Slam! Two old pros battling it out, and young Richard can’t get out of their way fast enough, so he gets knocked aside as they go past, and he goes into the wall. Guess who put him there?”
“Not his father?”
“None other. The old man won the championship that year, and flat nobody was going to stand in his way.”
“But that’s terrible!-Maybe he didn’t realize it was his son that he hit.”
Harley shrugged. “I’d have an easier time believing that if there wasn’t an even better story about them. Richard Petty’s first NASCAR win came the next summer, 1959, at the old Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta. But the victory was taken away from him when one of the other drivers, upset about some infraction or other, protested the outcome of the race. Guess who cost Richard his first win.”
Bekasu stared. “His father?”
Harley nodded.
“Well…maybe there was a good reason for it,” she said. She couldn’t think of one. “Maybe he wanted Richard to learn racing the hard way.”
“Maybe old Lee hoped that Richard would quit and go to law school.” Harley laughed. “No, that’s not true. Racing was always the family business. I don’t think Richard Petty considered any other career for more’n five minutes.”
“I still bet Lee Petty was sorry about putting Richard into the wall when he realized the other driver was his son.”
“That’s for sure. Lee was the car owner. Every dent he put in the car that Richard was driving would have to be fixed with money coming out of his own pocket.”
Bekasu shook her head. “Poor Richard Petty.” She had begun to picture The King as a sooty waif in a Dickens novel.
“Richard Petty wouldn’t see it that way,” Harley said. “There’s a saying on the track: ‘Rubbin’ is racin’.’ Dale Earnhardt lived by that motto. You’ve heard it?”
“Yes,” said Bekasu. “But what on earth does it mean?”
“It means that there’s more to competing than just driving a car at high speeds around an oval. There’s conflict with your opponents-that’s the rubbing. Bashing somebody out of your way so that you can win.”
“Your stag metaphor again, huh? Locking horns.”
“Right. It’s all part of the deal. Richard Petty knew that, and if he couldn’t handle the roughness back then, he’d have had no business in the sport.” Harley turned to look at the line of trophy cases, glinting gold in the fluorescent lighting. “But he turned out all right, didn’t he?”
Cayle and Justine had wandered to the back of the museum, where case after case of belt buckles were on display, and behind that was a room full of floor-to-ceiling glass shelves, housing The King’s gazillion pocketknives and the doll collection of Mrs. Richard Petty.
“I used to have that one!” Justine declared, pointing to a round-faced Madame Alexander storybook doll. “Got it for Christmas when I was nine.”
“I’ll bet this freed up a lot of space for them at home,” murmured Cayle, surveying the size of the two collections.
“I’ll bet their fans just eat this up,” said Justine. “Richard Petty’s stuff. It’s like getting to go upstairs and peek in your hosts’ bedrooms. These exhibits are good for the wives and kids, too. I mean, if somebody in your family is bored spitless by racing, but on the vacation they get dragged to this shrine for Richard Petty, why, the non-race fan can come back here and look at the pretty dolls and the fancy belt buckles, while the menfolk are drooling over the race car exhibits.”
“Speaking of stuff,” said Cayle. “I just had a cute idea for the newlyweds. I think we ought to get them a wedding present. So what if we all take turns buying them a coffee mug from every museum and speedway we visit? I bought a mug in Martinsville, so I can give them that.”