Lee Petty was NASCAR's first three-time Cup Series champion. He had set the major records in the NASCAR Cup Series until his son Richard Petty broke them. He won the first Daytona 500 at Daytona Interntional Speedway in 1959. He was badly injured in a qualifying race for the 1961 Daytona 500 when Johnny Beauchamp lost control and caught Petty's bumper, sending both cars through the guardrail and out of the track. The crash ultimately led to the end of Lee Petty's driving career. He was integral in making NASCAR a national sport in the United States and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011. He raced in 427 races scoring 54 wins, 332 top 10 finishes and 18 pole positions.
Alan Kulwicki's team executes an engineered pit stop with precision. The rule was if both feet are not touching pit road, then a person is not considered to over the wall. Here his team is putting a set of Hoosier Tires on his car. This is the 1989 spring race at Richmond International Speedway and Kulwicki started forth and finished second. It was a very eventful race for him as he brought out a caution with a spin at lap 194, and the resulting damage can be seen on the rear inside corner of his Ford. He led 108 of the races 400 laps and was passed for the lead by winner Rusty Wallace with 20 laps to go. This photo appeared in the book, "AutoRacing/USA -1989/The Year in Review."
Pre-Daytona 500 testing in January 1988 was the first time on the racetrack for the iconic black #3 Dale Earnhardt Sr Goodwrench Chevrolets. Here two of the black monsters, the cars that brought the Intimidator legend to full maturity, await tuning in the Daytona garage. Seeing the cars in the basic paint scheme without all the contingency decals is a visual treat, a still life composition featuring Goodwrench and Goodyear. This photograph appeared in the book "Unseen Earnhardt - The Man Behind the Mask."
