Petty: In his own words (speaks about courage)

[Guest guest]

Petty: In his own words

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/racing/wb/156183

What are the experiences, beliefs and dreams that shape the lives of some of

NASCAR's drivers? Staff writer Long asked Petty about these

subjects earlier this month as he sat on a couch in his team's hauler

awaiting practice at Bristol Motor Speedway:

By Long | The Roanoke Times

Long: Tell me a funny story in your career in racing.

Petty: The story that people like that I always tell is wrecking at

Indianapolis. Have I told you this story? Anyhow, I was running second to

[ny] Benson, I remember that much. I blew a right front tire coming out

of turn 4. ... They cut me out of the car but they can't get me to a

stretcher. So they put me on a backboard with a neck brace ... so they have

to lay me flat on the ground. So, I'm flat on the ground. And Sterling

[Marlin], I don't remember this but Sterling tells this, that as the guys

start to pick me up to put me back over the wall ... that as they reached to

put me back over the wall that I screamed. Sterling said I screamed like a

girl. They put me back down. They bend down and they pick me up and I

screamed. They put me down. Finally, Sterling said the paramedic that was at

the head ... realized that he was standing on my pony tail so when we would

pick me up, it would pull my head back and I would scream like a girl. So,

that's about the strangest thing that's ever happened.

DL: Tell me about one of your more memorable crashes.

KP: Probably one of the wildest ones I was in was here [bristol] three or

four years ago. The one that really caught me off guard was coming down the

frontstretch and Ward [burton] got hit and spun, and he ricocheted off the

inside wall. I thought I'd cleared him and he clipped me in the left rear

and the car spun around backwards and slapped the left side of the car into

the wall and it knocked me out. It's probably only the second time I've ever

been knocked out. It cracked a vertebrae, broke some ribs. It pulled a ton

of Gs. That's probably one, I say that was the wildest because I just never

saw it coming.

DL: Do you still play the guitar?

KP: I play every day. All the time. I've got one on the bus. I'll pick up

the guitar and people that play the guitar will probably relate to this. I

can pick up the guitar and watch a movie and play a guitar at the same time.

You just play.

DL: Do you still write songs?

KP: I'm the only one that hears them, but I still write them. After I had

spent time in Nashville doing music stuff in the '80s, to me it wasn't so

much about the guys that sang the songs or the women who sang the songs, it

was about the people that wrote them. There was just a craft to it. It's

cool, people who can take three verses and a chorus and maybe a bridge and

tell a whole story that you can visualize in your head. I've got tons of

kids songs. Some day I'm going to be like Bozo the Clown and have my own TV

show and sing my own kids songs.

DL: What are you reading?

KP: Right now I'm reading " Jack Kerouac's American Journey.' And I'm also

reading, studying for my pilot's test. I've done my cross country and I've

done my solo, I've got to take the written test.

DL: Why are you learning to fly?

KP: After Adam's accident, I looked and I thought, I was 40 years old. I had

been a part of life but had you ever really lived life? There's a

difference. We get caught up in doing what we do, but that's what we do.

What do you do outside of what you do? Do you learn a new language? Do you

try to do something? I want to learn a new language at some point in time. I

want to sky dive. I want to learn to fly. I want to experience things. I

don't want to get to be 90 years old and say, life lived me, I didn't live

life.

DL: What's a mystery you want to know the answer to?

KP: Are you ready? (Singing) Flintstones, meet the Flintstones, they're a

modern stone-age family. From the town of Bedrock. You know the song. Then,

it's: Someday, maybe Fred will win the fight, then that cat will stay out

for the night. Remember that? What happened to the cat, dude? Dino is Fred's

pet. Where did the cat come from and what happened to the cat? That's a

mystery. OK, it's not a Scooby-Doo mystery, but that's a freaking mystery.

Is it not? Think about it. They had a cat. Fred sets him outside. The cat

jumps back through the window and locks Fred out. That's the opening. Did

somebody write a song and it had a cat in it, so they had to put a cat in

the opening but a cat was not in an episode? What happened to the cat?

DL: Finish this: Never ...

KP: Never stop having fun. That's me. No matter what you do. What I mean by

that is this: Don't put yourself in a position, whether it's a job, whether

it's whatever it is that life is not fun. There are too many things out

there to do.

DL: Finish this: Always ...

KP: Always be kind. Try to anyhow. It's hard. Whether it's a fast-food

restaurant and a girl or a guy makes your order, say thank you, just say a

kind word. Always try to be kind.

DL: What's a chore at home you hate?

KP: Mowing the yard. Got married, told [wife] Pattie: " Here's the deal, for

better for worse and I'll never mow a yard. " Here's what happened. When I

lived ... down in Level Cross beside the race shop, our front yard was a

3-acre yard and every Tuesday I would start mowing and every Saturday I

would mow all day because in the summertime you would have to mow twice a

week it was so big. You were constantly mowing, and you would have to mow,

and then you would have to trim, and you would have to rake certain areas. I

swore if I ever got out of that place I was never mowing another yard as

long as I live and I've been true to that.

DL: What inspires you?

KP: It depends on what I'm doing on what inspires you. I think to get back

in a race car every week, I think Adam inspires me. What I mean by that,

I've said it before, I still feel closer to Adam when I'm sitting in that

car than I do any other time. No matter how bad things go or how rotten it

looks from the outside, it's still OK from the inside. There's a peace

there. It's like finding a place where you can sit under a tree and watch a

waterfall and there's a peace there.

DL: What scares you?

KP: What scares me the most is losing another child. It does. With [son]

Austin and [daughter] Montgomery Lee, I'll call them 100 times a day just to

check on them, just to see where they're at, just to touch base.

DL: What is courage?

KP: Courage is what these kids have that go to Victory Junction [camp for

children with various illnesses]. That's all courage is ... just getting up

every day and living the life that they've been given whatever life that is.

Whether it's spina bifida or hemophilia or juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. We

see little girls with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and they're in such pain

and they just get up and go play like that's just part of life. That's

courage because they're living a life that you and I and a lot of people

will never experience, and I think it takes courage for them to continue on.

DL: What are words to live by?

KP: Words to live by: Truth and honesty.