Petty Racing Muesum Level Cross North Carolina

Today we're in Lovell Cross, North Carolina and if you're a race fan you know what that's the home of? Richard Petty. That's right. So we're here at the Petty Museum and we're going to go in and check it out and we're going to answer the question if you're in this area should you stop here? Hi I'm Randy and I'm Diane and we're Zephyr Travels and today we are going to tour the Richard Petty Museum. This is in Lovell Cross, North Carolina and this was the race shop for Richard Petty Racing for a number of years going back to Richard Petty's father. He raced out of here. Richard did. Kyle did. Adam did. So four generations of Pettys raced out of this race shop and it's they've turned it into a museum because basically Richard said I have a whole bunch of stuff that I've collected over the years I need some place to put it. So we're going to go ahead and check out Richard's stuff and check out the museum and see what else is here. Petty Racing is the iconic NASCAR dynasty founded by Lee Petty and famously carried down by his son Richard Petty also known as the King. Spanning four generations of family involvement in stock car racing primarily known through Petty Enterprises from 1949 to 2008 the team dominated NASCAR with 268 wins and 10 cup series championships. Petty Enterprises was a powerhouse team in the NASCAR cup series. The dynasty included four generations of driver, Lee a three-time championship, son Richard, grandson Kyle and great-grandson Adam. Richard Petty known for his signature number 43 car, cowboy hat and sunglasses is the most accomplished driver in NASCAR history. Competing from 1958 to 1992 he set unparalleled records including 200 race wins, 700 NASCAR championships and seven Daytona 500 events. After Petty Enterprises closed the legacy continued through Richard Petty Motorsports and as of 2023 Legacy Motor Club where Richard serves as an ambassador. The facilities that was once vacated by the race team is still owned by the Petty family and part of it is now a small business called the Petty Garage and specializes in custom cars, vintage retro restorations and other specialty auto work. The other buildings are a museum dedicated to the NASCAR legacy of the Petty family. It features vintage race cars including a Plymouth Superbird, trophies and personal memorabilia from the King Richard as well as Lee and Kyle and Adam. So we're told there is three buildings here that you can tour. This is the main building and it's a lot of Richard and Linda's collections and then there's the race shop across the I want to say street but across the parking area and then in the back there's Lee's race shop the first race shop so you can wander through all that but in this building you've got a lot of things that Richard collected over the years that people gave him that you know he's kept and they're looking for a place to put it all these pocket watches and knives pistols rifles from different speedways in this room is all kinds of rifles and pistols interesting thing we saw a video with Kyle Petty and Richard Petty and they walked through this area and Kyle noted that he don't know if he's ever seen his father fire a rifle he has this big collection but he's pretty much stuff that people have given him or he's or such that he's just collected but he doesn't he doesn't do it because he wants to be you know he hunts or anything he just collects them which is pretty cool and if you notice here the number the guns are serialized and he gets number 43 of them which was his car number these are all number 43s out of so many same thing here well these are number 43 collector edition pistols now these dolls belong to Linda Petty and she collected them while traveling around with Richard during his racing years that's seven dwarfs the gun collection continues out here again a lot of these are number 43 almost think to a point that if you're doing a collection of something he would want to make sure that Richard had the number 43 Richard's Presidential Medal of Freedom 1984 Pontiac this is a replica or a duplicate of the one that he won his 200th race with now if you've ever seen the Cars movie this was the car replicas of the car movie this was Richard's the King's car the Superbird and over here was Linda Petty's car just reading the plaque here this is 69 Ford wagon the car was bought new for Linda Petty in 1969 she drove around town and to all the races she served lunch to many of the crew members out of the back of this car many times it was later sold to a family in Randleman years later Richard bought the car back and restored it when Pixar was making the movie Cars they wanted Linda to have a part and they asked her what car she would like to be in the movie she told him her 69 wagon more pictures of famous people so this is a 67 Plymouth this car he run 27 races and 19 pulls and it was a 1967 Grand National Champion car you can see how much simpler these cars were back then as far as what's required for safety and unlike today's cars these were actual vehicles not composite bodies or anything like that this is a 59 Oldsmobile Delta 88 hardtop or 88 hardtop and this is a replica of the car that Lee Petty won the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959 beating his son out for the win picture of Lee in the actual car some of the trophies these would have been Lee Petty's trophies and then going into some of the Richard Petty trophies so in 1967 was the year that Richard was essentially crowned the king winning 27 races one year 19 pole position 27 wins out of 48 starts out of 40 or 49 races at 30 different racetracks he won the Grand National Championship I'll show you this was back when it was a much more southern sport they did travel out the riverside and these are the races that he won the Petty family have four members of the family in the NASCAR Hall of Fame Richard, Lee, Dale Eggman and Maurice Petty Richard's brother what do you see this helmet was signed by all our participants in the 1981 Daytona 500 when Richard Petty won the race but he won the 200th in 1984 I remember that race he wrecked oh yes I know belt buckles Kyle Petty's 2007-2008 Dodge Charger the car he drove through his last two years Woods Brothers number 21 that Kyle drove he also took a victory in the world 600 Charlotte 26 model t that belonged to Lee Petty so this is what Richard drove in 1964 when Chrysler boycotted stock car racing he went into drag racing this 1964 Barracuda 1957 Oldsmobile look how the roof is removable so he could be raced as a convertible in a different class or as a hardtop here's Richard's last car Atlanta 92 he unfortunately wrecked but they got the car back out he was able to finish the race 87 Pontiac 2 plus 2 what's unique about these cars is the rear window glass making it more aerodynamic Chevrolet also had the Monte Carlo SS with a similar type of design he didn't see as many of the Pontiacs Adams Sprint car that was very very very old car he drove at Texas Motor Speedway this is when Kyle Petty won at Watkins Glen 1992 I'm sure we were there I think we were yeah I'm sure we were okay so now we're heading back into the Lee Petty building there's a few old cars here the legendary garage they actually continue to build cars here custom cars they build custom Mustangs and uh there's Richard oh wow so this is the original race shop look at the scales they used this is considered the reaper shed I don't know there's just a sign right here it says it was originally an old wooden shed with a dirt floor and this is where they started the race shop so the legendary garage continues to build custom cars and restomods they do restored cars there's some right there so this is the Petty family home where Richard and Maurice were born it is a historic landmark all hardwood floors let's consider a historical landmark one of the sidewalks all commemorative bricks wow up here would be Richard's Richard Petty's parent parents Lee and Elizabeth then we have Richard and his wife Linda and then Maurice the brother Maurice and Patricia and then down here we have Richard and Linda's children Kyle Sharon Lisa Rebecca how many kids four and these are Maurice's kids Timothy Elizabeth Richard and Mark yeah so basically you have the whole Petty family here yeah but then we have uh Kyle's um from his first marriage Adam and Austin Adam Austin were there more yeah Sarah and um Montgomery Lee I don't know who these people are well probably Kyle's sister's oh yeah okay then if you stand more on this side it's been Maurice's family family yeah and none of this is coming up on the camera because of the sun but and then we have I don't know we'll we'll have to look it up to be sure right because they're you know once you get in all different names it's hard to say they must be grandchildren maybe great-grandchildren so we're standing in front of the Petty homestead and we've toured the museum and a couple buildings and what do you think I was very impressed very amazed it's you know even if you're not a NASCAR Richard Petty Kyle Petty fan it's definitely worth a stop and if you are a fan it you just can't say enough good things about it how impressive and great yeah Richard Petty was to the sport and just as a person in general yes and it's amazing just to see everything that was given to him the museum is just jam-packed with stuff that you know he was given he collected his trophies his cars and it's not just overly cars now you would think a racing museum would just be cars and such it's not that no it's just everything that he experienced during his career right and we got to see Richard walk by and Kyle and Kyle said hi hi guys or something like yeah how you doing yeah unfortunately we get a chance to talk to either one we understand that Richard stops by just about every day and Kyle stops by several times a month probably depends on his broadcasting duties and how he's busy with victory junction game so if you come here you've got a good chance of possibly seeing Richard and maybe even Kyle you can always recognize of course Richard by his hat yes hat and the sunglasses yes yeah so it's pretty neat so we pose a question should you stop here on your way through this section of North Carolina and the answer is yes it's a definite must see like I say if you're not in it even if you're not a NASCAR fan but I'm sure most everybody has heard of Richard Petty right right and you want to bring the family members who aren't NASCAR fans because they're going to get a kick out of everything that's here right right and there is a section for if you're not you know into race cars there is a little bit with Richard's wife Linda and so that's kind of fun she was a collector of dolls so it's a fun collection there is a corner that's made for children yep so they're you know they run I think it's a movie the cars yeah cars and they also have replicas of the cars cars there yes so there's something for every family member yeah definitely worth coming and a lot of souvenirs that you can buy here have all been signed by Richard so we we did our part and yes and we got a free poster yes yeah so we did our part bought some souvenirs so if you like this video please give it a big thumbs up and if you haven't already subscribe to our channel Zephyr Travels and remember to hit that hype button it really helps us out yeah and when you subscribe make sure to hit that bell for notifications because we post new videos on a weekly basis and we just love to have you guys follow along in our journeys so until next time we'll see everybody down the road take care everybody bye