Petty's toughest race

...I checked his autobiography out of a public library all the way up in Virginia, and it was signed...

...I heard the testimonials, from the tract mansions of the furniture burghers to the naugahyde'n'wood-paneled pig-pulling joints...

...Even institutional Democrats like agriculture commissioner Jim "the Sodfather" Graham tell me about Petty's open houses for his fans and his accessibility...

...His father was venerable dirt-tracker Lee, and his son is Kyle, and even his pre-NASCAR great-grandfather died in a souped-up Model T ripping through the Piedmont backroads...

...But anywhere he goes on his campaign, I try to make sure that truck's there...

...For in the Piedmont, where they crank out stock-car racing champions like western Pennsylvania does quarterbacks or East St...

...I asked...

...Like a heavenly chorus, they all sing heartfelt hosannas to the King—the grown men with STP ties and the usually disaffected bucks at the state fair trying not to look too enthusiastic in front of their girlfriends as they run after his golf cart in spite of themselves...

...We stayed there all day," says Lane, "and he picked that young'un up and carried him all over that complex...

...But while crossing the state, I found he does something very few politicians do: He makes people happy...

...So it is no surprise that state Republicans tried to push him for a gubernatorial run, though he ruled that out because "it's one of them 24-hour-a-day deals...

...The Pettys are North Carolina's Kennedys—a long line of Tarheel speed demons, with such vaunted standing that Petty's political victory initially seemed a foregone conclusion...

...Even after Petty lowered his sights to the third spot on the ticket, Republicans thought lesser candidates could draft off of his favorite-son luminescence...

...He had a comfortable lead, but now finds himself six points behind a spoilsport Democrat lawyer named Elaine Marshall, who bills herself a "serious candidate for a serious job...

...They tell me how he was always at the track four and five hours after a race, even before the media started coming around, signing every last autograph with those ornate curlicues and his number 43 that takes at least five seconds to get down, but that he never refuses anyone...

...It was a good way to go," Petty says...

...Petty claims he kissed the other driver's bumper only because the guy hit his brakes and "my reflexes were slow...

...Not that he plans on moving to the state capital from his Petty Enterprises home base in Level Cross if he wins...

...What do you like about Richard Petty for secretary of state...

...That on-the-road aggressiveness "probably helped him with the 'necks,'" as in red, says one GOP consultant, "but it hurt him elsewhere, and I don't think people want somebody who can't put two sentences together...

...He signs everything: ducks and dashboards and body parts, and when some wiseguy on the campaign trail brought a pony doubling for a donkey, he cocked his hat, took out his felt pen, and signed the bridle...

...What's not to like...

...Like any good American folk hero, Petty comes sinewy and leather-skinned and looks like he just shot his way out of a Peckinpah movie...

...Resentful that he's not making appearances at their pleasure, and because down-ticket GOP candidates aren't getting the expected bounce, most Republicans here are telling me that the King is going to lose...

...Petty's at a loss to explain his decline—maybe it was that little incident last month on Highway 85 when his Dodge truck gave a little tap to another driver who was moving too slowly in the fast lane and wouldn't move over...

...But I have cause to doubt...

...But Petty's poll numbers are dropping like a rock...

...We are on a bone-crushing eight-stop-a-day campaign swing for Petty, who wants to be the next secretary of state of North Carolina—a job many locals regard as a comedown for His Majesty...

...Ain't nobody no bigger," attests the aptly named Man Lane, a dead ringer for Junior Sample who has a Petty museum in his backyard...

...Nobody knows about it...

...Louis does crack dealers, Richard Petty is still the King of NASCAR—even four years after retirement...

...He wears a Charley One-Horse hat with python skin and mink bones, and has a mean-mwchacho mustache offset by beautiful piano-key teeth, kept clean, he explains, by his Skoal habit: "The tobacco keeps the other stuff off...

...To cheer him up, Lane requested a meeting with Petty, who not only got the kid pit passes for a race at Rockingham but had the family over to the house the next morning...

...she said...

...He couldn't walk...

...Coming out of the official Petty museum in Level Cross after seeing the Petty video and Petty belt buckles and the sweat-stained socks in which Petty won the Firecracker 400, I spotted an overpermed, raspberry-eye-browed number who looked like she'd just come out of Graceland...

...True, he's not exactly Daniel Webster on the stump, giving his low-watt good-ol'-boy rumble for about five minutes before marathon autograph sessions...

...Though Petty's supported Republicans going back to Nixon and even served 16 years as a county commissioner, it's still hard to see him pushing papers around Raleigh dealing with securities regulation...

...She eyed my cellophane bag with two Petty hats and a Petty patch all signed with one of my four Petty pens...

...Lane drives a truck replica of the Petty Pontiac to nearly every campaign stop, not just because he's a fan, but because 20 years ago, his 5-year-old son "fell into a scalding vat while we was killin' hogs...

...Petty himself became a living legend by winning 200 Winston Cup races, a record considered as unassailable as Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game...

...He settled on secretary of state and intends to forfeit the $90,000-a-year salary as a matter of public duty, though he'll hold onto his numerous business ventures and endorsements—and so what if media types have their panties in a wad over "conflicts of interest and stuff...