"We just used a bumper": Richard Petty on why old-school NASCAR never needed middle fingers

Richard Petty's latest sit-down with The Athletic has offered a window into the way NASCAR has shifted since its rough-edged 1960s roots. At 88, “The King” still frames the sport through an uncomplicated lens: you handled your business on the racetrack, not with a hand signal.

Driver aggression has always been present in NASCAR, but the form it takes has changed through the years. Earlier, racers depended on the car to send the message with chrome horn taps, fender rubs, or a well-timed nudge. While the middle finger has been around the garage for just as long, cameras rarely caught it in the 1970s or 1980s, and officials rarely intervened.

Modern broadcasting, cockpit cameras, and strict conduct clauses have made every gesture public and punishable. Kyle Busch’s 2010 penalty for flipping the bird at a NASCAR official set a line in the sand, and outrage re-erupted when Bubba Wallace skipped fines in 2023 for similar actions.

Richard Petty (43) leads Buddy Baker (11) at the 1971 Miller High Life 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway. Source: Imagn

Asked by Jeff Gluck whether hand gestures were part of the landscape in his time, Petty said in the 12 Questions Podcast:

"No, we just used a bumper. You know what I mean? If you had trouble with somebody, you tried to take care of it right then. Now, when the race is over, people get healed with each other: they start telephoning each other, faxing each other and stuff."

It was an unscripted rule to settle it fast, then ride home together on the same hauler. Newer generations are more inclined to vent over the radio, on pit road, or online, sometimes long after the checkered flag.

The shift also tracks with economics. In Richard Petty’s day, a primary car might be raced repeatedly; wrecking meant weeks of repairs. Modern teams can field backups, and damaged pieces are replaced with less sentimental weight.

"We didn’t do that. As quick as a race was over, they got it over with. Don’t dwell on anything that’s going to upset you," Petty added.

Most recently, Carson Hocevar’s televised middle-finger salute to Layne Riggs after a Truck Series win at Kansas underscored how easily frustration finds daylight. Respect lines blur, tempers stretch, and with cheaper composite bodies, bump-and-run contact feels consequence-free.

---

"You just slow down": Richard Petty explains the effect of carbon monoxide on NASCAR drivers

Richard Petty before the 1980 Daytona 500. Source: Getty

Richard Petty’s interview also drifted to a far different hazard of carbon-monoxide poisoning. Before cool suits and high-flow ventilation, toxic exhaust was a silent rival. Stock cars' route engines, cracked headers, or crumpled exhausts can turn the cockpit into a gas chamber. Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin, starving the brain of oxygen, and at lethal levels, it’s potent enough for animal euthanasia.

NASCAR has never lost a driver solely to CO, but fainting spells, nausea, and pit-lane collapses pepper the record books. When asked about the most miserable he'd ever been inside a race car, Petty didn’t hesitate:

"That’d be hard to say after running 30-some years and all the heat and broken bones and all that. The biggest part was getting carbon monoxide (poisoning). And you don’t feel anything, you just slow down."

In the 1960s, his remedy was crude but effective, as he explained:

"You get out and start getting some oxygen, and they’d give you pure oxygen. First time I got it was Atlanta, and it bothered me the rest of my racing career. I think it was '61 or '62. But a lot of times, I'd feel it coming on quick, and I'd get out of the car, get some oxygen and then get back in the car."

The danger lingered well past his prime until the early 2000s. Drivers taped seams, stuffed towels, and vented cowl openings to fight the gas. But changes in header design, catalytic converters, and sealed firewalls have reduced the threat. Denny Hamlin and Cody Ware were the latest reported symptoms in 2019.

Richard Petty’s stories remind how his generation endured problems of a different kind. Today’s competitors inherit safer cabins and clearer conduct codes, yet tempers still flare, sometimes louder than ever.