Editor’s Note: Someone from the Petty family of central North Carolina has been involved in NASCAR since the inaugural Cup Series race in June of 1949 at Charlotte Speedway. The Rocky Mount Telegram will devote all four of Al Pearce’s weekly columns this month to the Petty family and its place in NASCAR history.
We’ll eventually get around to the Petty you’ve never heard of, but let me first reintroduce you to some Pettys you’ve probably heard something about over the past 75 years:
Lee Petty: Three-time NASCAR champion; Hall of Fame owner/driver with 54 career victories, including the inaugural 1959 Daytona 500; stock car racing’s first superstar; suffered career-shortening injuries in a 1961 Daytona 500 qualifying crash; died in 2020 at age 86.Richard Petty: Lee’s eldest son; seven-time champion; in inaugural Hall of Fame class as driver/owner; 200 victories, including a record seven Daytona 500s; won 10 Most Popular Driver Awards; 1959 Rookie of the year; worldwide, the most recognizable name in stock car racing; acknowledged as “the King;” at almost 86, he’s still with the Toyota-based Gallagher/Johnson Legacy Motor Club team.Maurice Petty: Lee’s other son and Richard’s younger brother; failed as a driver, but excelled as Hall of Fame crew chief, engine-builder and mechanic; overcame polio to become successful and moderately famous; Richard called him “Morris” while racing insiders simply called him “Chief;” died in 2020 at age 81.Kyle Petty: Lee’s grandson, Richard’s only son and Maurice’s nephew; won eight races in 829 starts over parts of 30 seasons, two with Wood Brothers Racing and six with Sabco Racing; won once at Richmond, Charlotte, Pocono, Dover and Watkins Glen, and three times at Rockingham; currently a TV analyst and founder of Victory Junction, a camp for kids with physical challenges that disqualify them from mainstream camps; his is among the most progressive, forward-looking and reasonable voices within the racing community.Adam Petty: Lee’s great-grandson, Richard’s grandson and Kyle’s son; 19 when he died in an Xfinity practice session at Loudon, N.H., in May 2000; had made one Cup start, two in the Truck Series, 43 in Xfinity and a handful in lower series; the deaths of Petty, Tony Raines and Dale Earnhardt spurred NASCAR to update its safety initiatives; without question, Adam would have been the future of Petty Enterprises.Thad Moffitt: Relatively new to NASCAR; another of Lee’s great-grandsons, Richard’s grandson, Maurice’s nephew and Kyle’s cousin; at 23, he’s full-time in the Craftsman Truck Series after several good years as a part-time Xfinity, Craftsman and ARCA driver; struggling to find his place in the Truck Series; was a fairly successful sports car racer.
Several other Pettys have tried racing, mostly without distinction. Richie, Timmy and Mark Petty are Maurice’s sons; Gene Petty is Julian’s son; Kyle has five children: Davant, Overton, Cotton, Montgomery Lee and Austin, who has a son, Adam. To this point, none has gone racing.
As for the Petty you may have never heard of: Julius Hilton Petty.
Don’t feel bad. Few NASCAR fans — even the most attentive — know about Lee’s younger brother and “Uncle Julian” to Richard and Maurice. Even though he’s the least-known of the Pettys, Julian enjoyed a solid but low-profile career throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.
Granted, he wasn’t much of a driver. He had one top-10 in three career starts, a seventh at Martinsville in September 1952. He qualified poorly, ran poorly and finished poorly at Montgomery, Ala., in 1955. Later that year, at Plattsburg, N.Y., he didn’t fare much better in a race Lee won.
But Julian Petty was a terrific mechanic and team owner. His 181 Cup Series entries won 14 poles and 13 races with Bob Welborn, Tiny Lund, Marvin Panch and Jim Paschal. He also fielded cars for NASCAR Hall of Fame drivers Junior Johnson, Joe Weatherly, Rex White and David Pearson. He was team owner when Welborn won eight races and the 1958 NASCAR Convertible Division title. Not a bad career for someone who was mostly overlooked.
Records were sketchy back then, so it’s not surprising there’s some confusion about Julian’s role with the other Pettys. Some sources list him as crew chief when Lee finished second to Red Byron in 1949 points. More sources have him as crew chief when Lee — driving a neighbor’s street car — crashed out of the first Cup race at Charlotte in 1949.
Later that year, in family-prepared cars, Lee finished top-10 in five of the next six races. Among them: second at Martinsville, first at Pittsburgh and second at North Wilkesboro. Records listed Julian as Lee’s crew chief in those races, just as they did for the earlier races at Charlotte, Hillsboro and Langhorne, Pa.
But Richard disputes that. He recently set the record straight by saying Lee never had a traditional crew chief role.
“Daddy was always his own crew chief,” the 200-time winner said. “He did everything himself. He might have had a mechanic to help at some races, but he was always his own crew chief. Even in ’60 and ’61, he was his own crew chief, calling his own shots. The race he won in Pittsburgh that season? He went up there alone and did everything himself.
“Daddy and Uncle Julian grew up together. They were big into cars, but Julian had his race team and Daddy had his, so they never worked together. There weren’t any hard feelings or anything … it was just that Daddy did his thing and Julian did his thing. They sometimes raced against each other, but never worked together. In this case, the record books are wrong.”
Next week: Wrapping up the Petty series with even more stuff you probably never knew.
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