The Art of Being a 

Racing Wife

With Linda Petty, wife of Richard, recently passing away after a long bout with cancer, I got to thinking just how important racing wives are to a family.  They are the glue that holds everything together.

Lynda had been fighting cancer for quite some time. Two years ago, when I attended the NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Texas, I had the opportunity to meet Richard.  He graciously opened his RV to us to do some photos and a BS session.  It was a surreal moment.  That man can genuinely engage in a conversation with someone he just met.  As it turned out, we were quite fortunate to do that meet & greet, as Richard was leaving shortly thereafter—even before the race started, to fly home to Lynda because she was not doing well.  That was two years ago.  I can only imagine how brutal some of her days were between then and the end.  Cancer is vicious.  It’s even more vicious to watch someone who has been incredibly strong succumb to it.

Lynda was instrumental in starting the Racing Wives Auxiliary, an organization that helps injured members of the NASCAR community.  It was extremely hard decades ago to be a racing wife at the top level of the sport.  Back then, there weren’t massive pay days or endorsement deals that funded lush motor homes.  Having a place of respite where you could take care of the kids or grab a quiet moment with your spouse was unheard of back in the day.  Private jets were not a common staple in the budgets to get a driver’s family to and from the races.  It was a rough life for the wives of racers or crew members, if they even were able to attend the races.

Supporting your spouse’s hopes and dreams is something everyone should do.  It can be tough when a spouse is absent for many things, due to their work.  Spouses of those who are members of the military will always have my utmost respect.  Not only do they struggle to hold down the proverbial fort solo, but the potential risk of losing their spouse in the line of duty is always in the back of their mind.  I’m not at all trying to equate a racer to a member of the military, but the scenario can be somewhat similar.  The time away from the family while working on the race car, traveling or racing can be tremendous.  Obviously, there is risk of losing one’s life in racing is there as well.  The Petty family is all too familiar with that, when their grandson, Adam died from injuries sustained in a racing incident back in 2000.  But it’s not the same thing as military, I get that.

Still, at the local short track level, racing wives play an integral role.  My husband is not a racer per se, but he does build race cars and is a crew chief.  I’m grateful that we don’t have small children, as I see firsthand just how challenging that can be on racing families.  Being a racing wife can be tough.  Being a racing wife and mom is downright exhausting.  It requires copious amounts of patience, understanding, and bottles of wine.

It is doubtful that Lynda Petty relied upon wine.  She was a skillful wife and mother in the pits, capable of feeding an entire pit crew and brood of children out of the back of a station wagon.  I bought a bag of Fritos once for my husband at the race track.  I guess I need to work on that a little more.

Racing wives are the backbone of the family.  We soothe our husband’s bruised ego when a night doesn’t go well. We are their biggest cheerleaders when they are on the cusp of a win, and those with children end up filling in the parenting gaps solo as necessary.  We are philanthropists, always ready to help another racing family, whether it’s a fundraiser or just helping to keep an eye on kids in the grandstands.  Diplomacy is something all racing wives must learn.  We smile and pretend to be happy for another family, when their dad wins the feature; even though we wished it were our own kid’s dad in Victory Lane.

A healthy work/racing/life balance is a difficult thing to achieve.  I don’t know if Lynda Petty ever had the perfect balance, but she sure made it look like it.  Attitude is everything, and a positive one at that, which can be tough when your husband works a lot of hours.  My husband is a workaholic.  Although, I’m convinced he could probably manage his time just a little better.  He talks A LOT.  Seriously, he logs WAY over 3500 minutes each month on his cellphone, and if you get him going on stories of races past and he’ll devour hours.  And they say women talk a lot.

Regardless, our marriage seems to be made for racing.  We are both passionate about this sport we love, yet we both have our own interests at the track.  Obviously, he is in the pits with his team and I’m somewhere up top, videotaping the events or doing a live broadcast, depending on the track.  He has never said it, but I’m sure he appreciates that he doesn’t have to worry about where I’m at or what I’m doing.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.  The worst thing that could happen is for something to not go well at the track because I was making demands on his time for something, when he needed to be focused on the car or team.  I don’t want to be THAT wife.

But still, holding a family unit together with a racer can be tough, when there are jobs around the house to be done; particularly auto care.  It is incredibly strange that a guy who turns wrenches for a living, struggles to find the time to perform such tasks on our personal vehicles.

I think my husband would agree that I don’t nag.  I nudge.  However, that can backfire sometimes.  I purchased side mirrors for my Ford Explorer and asked him to help me replace the broken ones.  Those new mirrors sat by the door to the garage for a whole year, before I finally watched a YouTube video that showed me how to replace them.  I ended up doing that job myself, thinking that he would feel guilty for not doing it.  Wrong.  Instead, he bragged to his buddies how awesome his wife was for being able to do the job herself.    How could I be mad at him?  He was so proud of me.  In retrospect, I’m pretty sure that was his plan.  Kill me with compliments, so I forget that he was supposed to do the job over a year ago.

I really shouldn’t rip on him too much.  The stars aligned this week for me.  I actually wrote down the date and time in my journal.  This stuff doesn’t happen—ever.  My husband bought the swaybar bracket kit and replaced the broken ones on my Explorer!  I had only asked him once if he could do it.  I was astounded.  I even took a picture to document the occasion, and then I took him out to dinner to celebrate.  I’m starting to think he has the upper hand on this deal, in retrospect.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m handling these situations the way Lynda Petty would have.  I certainly don’t have the magnitude of patience and vision that she did, but I’m trying.  I think we could all benefit if we tried harder to emulate Lynda Petty, the first lady of NASCAR racing.  Be passionate about what and who you love, be supportive, but most of all make the most of every situation, even if it isn’t “perfect.” There is no such thing as perfect.