"It ended my career as much as anything": When Richard Petty blamed carbon monoxide for quietly haunting his NASCAR run

About eight years ago, Richard Petty said he would collapse during races early in his career. He blamed carbon monoxide exposure for ending his "driving career as much as anything."

Up untill the early 2000s, NASCAR drivers raced heavy, full‑size stock cars that offered minimal ventilation. Exhaust fumes seeped into cockpits, and nose‑to‑tail racing meant drivers often inhaled the colorless and odorless toxic gas. Rick Mast retired in 2003 following chronic carbon monoxide poisoning. He said years of exposure left him ill and disoriented. NASCAR later began efforts to add air hoses on helmets and deliver cleaner air during races.

During a 2017 interview, Petty also recalled a similar incident in Atlanta in 1963 and said the crew handed him a wet rag, sometimes a red shop rag, to chew on.

"I'd get so hot that the crew would give me a wet rag to chew on, sometimes just a red shop rag that was laying there. And now we all realize just how bad the carbon monoxide was. I collapsed because of it at Atlanta in 1963. It was the carbon monoxide that ended my driving career as much as anything," Richard Petty said (via Automobile Magazine).

Petty's collapse at Atlanta in 1963 came a year before his first NASCAR Cup championship and haunted his driving even as he won seven titles and 200 races.

"I wasn't the fastest driver" - When Richard Petty explained his winning strategy

Richard Petty and his team's commitment to make it to every race on the schedule was an important factor in his record for the most NASCAR Cup Series wins.

During the same 2017 interview, Petty noted that being smart on track and showing up in all races helped him win 200 races in 1,184 starts.

"I wasn't the fastest driver but I knew how to race, when to save the car and when to get on the gas and always to get to the finish. And because it was our livelihood, we made it to all the races on the schedule, and not everybody did that in the beginning," Richard Petty said (via Automobile Magazine).

Petty built his success on persistence; he won half of his 200 races over 279 starts, between 1967 and 1972. That six-year span included a record ten consecutive victories in 1967. His longtime crew chief, Dale Inman, helped with reliable car setup and strategy across decades.

Petty won his seventh and final NASCAR Cup title and his 200th victory in the 1984 Firecracker 400. He retired after the 1992 Hooters 500 at Atlanta. That final race ended with a fiery crash and fire. Petty's car caught fire on lap 95, but he returned to the track for the last lap without a hood and completed the race.