"We'd been through some car changes over the years. The headache with the downsized car of 1981 was the fact they were so free on the racetrack. The handling on that bugger was terrible. It took us three days of test running at Daytona to solve our headache with the car. But I guess we solved it pretty good because we were good the rest of Speedweeks, and ended up winning the Daytona 500."

"A headache from the word 'go'," recalls Petty. "We were leading in Daytona, the first race of the season. I blew a left rear tire and knocked out David Pearson and Darrell Waltrip as we were all about to lap Bobby Allison. Bobby ended up winning the race and we ended up switching cars later that year."

"In 1972 we first started talking with STP about them sponsoring our car. We agreed on the money. But then they said, 'Oh by the way, the car will be red.' I said, 'We already have a blue car. I don't care how much money you've got.' So we finally hit on half red and half blue, and got everything worked out."

"At Darlington in 1970 I crashed a Plymouth Superbird during a practice session. So we went and got a regular Plymouth, and I was trying to run it as fast as the Superbird. But I crashed and ended up dislocating my shoulder and got beat up pretty good."

"The ban of the hemi engine for the 1965 season was hard to take. We had a great year in 1964, including winning the Daytona 500. NASCAR came back and said we couldn't run that motor. So we decided to turn Petty Enterprises toward drag racing for a short time and when the rules changed again, we got back into NASCAR. But yeah, that was a big headache for awhile."

"We thought we'd finally won a race. But my Dad finished second and he protested us," Richard recalls. "They ended up declaring him the winner. But, as it turned out, we won $500 more than he did because of bonus money, so we accepted it."