An update on Richard Petty, the most successful driver in the history of NASCAR racing and GOP candidate for secretary of state in North Carolina this year: Basically, he got beat like the family mule. And his fans don’t know what’s worse — that he lost by 9 points or that he lost to a woman, Democrat Elaine Marshall. Though Marshall once posed in a campaign ad with a pig, she billed herself as “a serious candidate for a serious job” — a charge few would make of Petty’s candidacy.
Various things did him in, but mostly himself. You got the sense that Petty’s heart wasn’t in the race, and not only because he played Duel with another driver on a Piedmont road. He once referred to his bid as ” servin’ my time” and said he looked forward to the election “like a hole in the head.”
But politically, the King of NASCAR died with his Justin boots on, refusing to go out in a concessionary whimper. “I ain’t staying up all night,” he said, turning in before the final tally without conceding, even though Marshall had won. When asked what he would’ve done differently, Petty replied, “If I had known I was going to lose, I wouldn’t have run.”
