“She was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen,” Richard Petty once said, remembering a freshman cheerleader named Lynda Owens. It was a feeling that quietly rewrote his future. Fresh out of Randleman High School Tigers in 1955, the expectation was simple: Richard would disappear into racing, following his father Lee full-time until he was old enough to drive himself. Instead, he stayed.

He showed up to every Tigers game, volunteered to haul cheerleaders, and lingered in town longer than anyone expected. Racing could wait. Love couldn’t. Decades later, long after championships, White House dinners, and national fame, that same instinct pulled Richard and Lynda back to one unassuming spot in North Carolina. It revealed how, at heart, NASCAR’s First Family never stopped being who they were at the very beginning.

Where Lynda and Richard Petty always went back to

Long before Richard Petty became The King and Lynda Petty became NASCAR’s first lady, their love story unfolded far from grandstands and victory lanes. According to Kyle Petty, the place that mattered most to his parents wasn’t a five-star restaurant or a glamorous getaway, but a modest fish camp tucked beside a pond in rural North Carolina.

“The first date that they went on was at a local fish camp up the road from where my dad still lives…. It was called Bonnie K’s, and it sat down on a little pond, and they would go there, and that was date night for them their whole life. Their whole life.” Kyle Petty revealed recently.

That simplicity defined everything about Richard and Lynda’s early years. Their dates were drive-in movies, long rides to Greensboro to pick up race car parts, and weekends where Richard chose staying close to Lynda over traveling with his father, Lee Petty. In an era when racing demanded total devotion, those small choices mattered.

They eventually married quietly, eloping to South Carolina because Richard didn’t even have the money for an engagement ring. When he finally bought one three months later, they revealed the news to their families. The newlyweds moved into the legendary Petty stone house, still the centerpiece of the family property today, where racing history and family life blended into one.

Bonnie K’s remained their constant. Despite White House dinners, state banquets, and every honor racing could offer, that little fish camp never lost its meaning.

“When the place closed down, we as a family, all 40 of us, got together and went to Bonnie K’s and went in the back room and had one last meal there because that’s where our mom and our dad had always gone for their anniversary.”

Richard and Lynda raised four children and many more grandchildren, building one of NASCAR’s most enduring family legacies. And through it all, their love story stayed rooted exactly where it began. Simple, steady, and unmistakably theirs!

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Together until the very end

For all the championships, trophies, and public moments that defined Richard Petty’s life, the hardest miles he ever traveled were alongside Lynda during her final years. In 2010, the Pettys arrived at Duke University Medical Center under frightening circumstances.

Lynda was struggling with her eyesight, and what followed was devastating. She temporarily lost her vision, her ability to walk, and at one point, even failed to recognize the home she had lived in for three decades. Doctors soon diagnosed her with lymphoma, and she began treatment at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke.

Through it all, Richard never left her side. Friends noticed how quietly he shifted roles, from racing icon to full-time caregiver, without complaint or fanfare. That devotion was most visible on one of the biggest days of his career: his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

While the sport gathered to celebrate “The King,” Richard focused on only one thing. He pushed Lynda in her wheelchair up the blue carpet himself, refusing assistance, determined that she would be part of the moment they had both earned. As the festivities carried on late into the night for others, Richard cut his celebration short.

He wanted to get Lynda home so she could rest. There were no after-parties, no extended congratulations. Being there for her mattered more than any ceremony. Lynda understood what lay ahead. In quiet conversations with friends and family, she urged them to look after Richard.

“I thought I was going to be gone. I really did,” she once said tearfully, fully aware of the battle she was fighting.

On March 25, 2014, Lynda Petty passed away at the age of 72 after a long fight with cancer. For Richard, the loss marked the end of a partnership that had lasted a lifetime – one built on simplicity, loyalty, and showing up, every single time, until the very end.