It has been a while since NASCAR visited the iconic Bowman Gray Stadium. However, the short track is almost like a book in which many legendary stories have been written in the past. One of those tales is that of Richard Petty’s 100th Cup Series win. The King recently reflected on his victory in the 1969 Myer Brothers 250 and expressed a slight disappointment.
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He said in an interview with WFMY News 2 that he was given the trophy for his victory by the Myers wives. However, a single picture of the post-race ceremony doesn’t exist anywhere. “We can’t even find a picture. I mean we’ve looked everywhere to try to see if there was any publicity about winning the race,” he noted.
“We’ve looked through our stuff, we looked through NASCAR’s, all their archives and nobody’s got anything. So, again, it was just run and forgotten I guess.” The accomplishment came through in an incredible manner. Petty started on the pole and spun in Lap 1 after making contact with Bobby Isaac’s car. Fortunately, he was able to stay in the lead lap.
Isaac went on to dominate the event by leading 241 laps. As the race was coming to a close, Isaac ran out of fuel just as he crossed the pit road entrance and he lost a huge lead. Petty, meanwhile, ran out of fuel as well. Fortune favored him once again as he did so before crossing the pit road entrance.
He headed in for refueling his car and ultimately took the win after leading only nine laps. The accomplishment was 10 years in the making and the newspapers lauded him as the greatest driver ever at the time. Little chance did they have of knowing that he would record another 100 wins before quitting the show.
Petty explains what sets fans at Bowman Gray apart from others
The Bowman Gray Stadium has been nicknamed ‘Madhouse’ with good reason. The fans always appear to run on extra juice when races go down and the closed layout of the stands amplifies things to a great extent. Petty is a person who has extensive experience dealing with this crowd.
He said in his interview, “The fans at Bowman Gray are like watching a football game. They get into the race. A lot of places you go and you see people just wandering. The race will be going on and they’re over the concession stand or whatever. Talking on their phone or just peddling around.”
“But at Bowman Gray, every lap everybody’s up watching, hollering, pulling for their favorite driver, screaming at somebody. So, there’s a lot of emotion when you go to Bowman Gray.” The 2025 Cup Series drivers are bound to be in for one hell of a show on February 2, 2025, from fans. The only expectation is that they return the favor.
