Ok , I knew there was something I remembered about Petty and a ford. Petty used to drag race a ford long ago. I beleive I am correct about this. I donot know who was driving the petty ford, Richard or not but the car got away from the driver. It went into the crowd , something came off but anyway a person died from the incident. Richard stopped drag racing. The car was buried on the Petty farm for years after it was crushed into a 3 foot by 3 foot square.
I live about 5 miles from a great friend I knew all my life that was a big racer. He used to drive a funny car that was called Viginia Twister. He also had a very fast roader runner and a baracuda. He had parts at his shop that came from Petty Enterprise . He knew Richards brother is how this next subject came to be.
This mans name was Billy West as his title was in connection to the funny car but not his real name The man died last year but his wife still sells stuff out of the shop. There is like 3 or 400 cars in back of that shop, mostly mopars. He always sold soft rubber street tires that held better than any tire I ever bought for the highway, alot of ford stuff as well . Now the rest of the story.......
I was at his shop years ago and saw a square crushed up metal thing as we were standing behind the shop. I could tell it use to be a car and asked Billy what it was. Then came the story when he was at the Petty home which he went alot. They were digging with a bicoe and up popped this square metel box which was a car. He had told me when the car was raced last and a person was killed they had the car crushed , buried on the farm and drag racing was over. That car was a blue torino. My friend stated he did alot of talking to accuire that crushed up car and got it with one clause. It was never to be sold at any price. He had told me that a man came to his shop knowing what the car was and offered him a rediculous price for it because of the history. As far as I know that crushed car is STILL behind the shop. If anyones intrested I will ask about it again for many around here knows of it and post maybe more. I thought it was intresting then, forgot about it till I saw this Richard Torino post. Sorry for the long post but thats what we do anyway, look for something intresting to read.......