Early Career
Petty began racing at a young age and made his major-league stock car debut at the age of 18. He won the very first race he entered: the 1979 Daytona ARCA 200, in one of his father's mothballed 1978 Dodge Magnum race cars; at the time becoming the youngest driver to win a major-league stock car race. Later in the season, he made his Winston Cup Series debut; again driving a passed down STP Dodge Magnum numbered #42 (a number used by his grandfather Lee Petty) for his family's team. He ran five races and had a ninth-place finish in his first series race at Talladega. In 1980, he made a total of fifteen starts in the #42 (after crashing the last of his father's Dodge Magnums in one of the Daytona 125 qualifying races) and had six top-ten finishes (using what ever hand-me-down race car his father could spare), garnering a twenty-eighth place points finish. He began the 1981 season driving his father's #43 for one race, before running a full schedule in his regular #42, finishing in the top-ten ten times and finishing twelfth in points. He began the 1982 season with two top-ten finishes, but later began splitting time between his #42 and the #1 UNO/STP car owned by Hoss Ellington, and ended the season fifteenth in points.
In 1983, he picked up funding from 7-Eleven and switched his number to #7 accordingly. He had only two top-ten finishes but improved to thirteenth in the standings. He followed that season up with six top-tens the following year, but fell three spots in points..
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