Richard Petty in full "King" mode at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway at the February 24, 1980, Richmond 400. Petty coming off his final Winston Cup Championship in 1979 would start and finish third in this race. He would record two wins in 1980. This photo has appeared on the cover of two books, "Richard Petty - Images of the King," by Ben Blake and Dick Conway, and "50 First Victories - Nascar Drivers' Breakthrough Wins," by Al Pearce and Mike Hembree.
Eventual winner Darrell Waltrip heads back on the track in the 1984 Transouth 500 at Darlington Raceway. Terry Labonte would finish second the only other car on the lead lap. Bill Elliott would be third one lap down in the 4-hour eighteen-minute race. This photo appeared in the book "AutoRacing/ USA - 1984/The Year in Review."
This photo ran on the front page of the Saturday February 26, 1977, edition of The Richmond News Leader. It capped a good day for me as I had this on page A1 and also had the lead photo on the Sports page that day. Both photos were made on Friday the day before during practice and qualifying for the upcoming Sunday's Richmond 400. Janet Guthrie was at Richmond to make her first Winston Cup short track race start. The week before she had finished 12th in the Daytona 500 and this week at Richmond in her seventh overall Winston Cup race start, she would finish 12th again. The cutline in the paper under the photo read, "Janet Guthrie finds a moment of peace amid the activity during qualifying at the Fairgrounds Raceway where the Richmond 400 automobile race will be run tomorrow."
