contest winnings...

[ajwest92]

I thought it was for his accounting classes...his teacher could not read his writing in the practice ledgers (back then, running your own business meant doing your own books), so he enrolled in penmanship courses.

[wolf1bh]

nice. holy cow 3 wins in like 20 races or so? are you a genius or do not that many people play?

[Jolietracing]

Here's a story I found about the King & his signature:

ICONIC SIGNATURE
Petty grew up in North Carolina where his famous father, Lee, was one of the early heroes of NASCAR.
It was Lee who convinced his son to get a few business courses under his belt buckle before he drove for a living, which was always the Petty family plan since Richard was 11 years old.
"My dad went to King's Business College in Greensboro, N.C., and he said, 'Go there. Take a business course because racing is business.' And when I got out of high school, first thing I decided was that I didn't want to take up four years going to college."
Business school was the perfect fit.
Not only could Richard follow in his father's footsteps ... NASCAR's future King ended up at King's Business College.
"The biggest part was bookkeeping, which meant learning how to make entries in a book," Petty recalled "They immediately gave us a class in penmanship, so that our entries could be read."
Then came the part that literally shaped his famous signature.
"I took an optional course called oriental penmanship. I had noticed that my dad, whenever he signed his name, made a big circle with his 'L' followed by a couple of e's, then a big 'P.' Anybody could read it. I liked that," said King Richard.
He has provided several generations of race fans with a very expressive autograph. Vaulted lines and ornate loops. It's more a work of art than chicken scratch.
He rarely, if ever, turns down an autograph seeker. If he's eating at a restaurant, he'll ask you to wait by the door.
At the very least, you'll receive an "RP."
"If you get RP," he laughed, "that's a hurry-up job."
Bobby Allison was a fierce Petty rival for years. He understood King Richard's enormous fan popularity and soon developed a friendly competition for how many autographs each man could sign.
"Richard puts all the curlicues in, so his signature takes awhile," Allison said in Peter Golenbeck's 2006 book "Miracle: Bobby Allison and the Saga of the Alabama Gang."
"Yeah, and Bobby would start off with two or three letters in Allison, then phweet!" Petty whistled. "He'd make a straight line."
Nothing bugs King Richard more than an autograph that can't be identified a few years later. He owns a few signed baseballs with illegible signatures.
"The way I do my autograph is just backward to the way they taught us (at King's Business College)," Petty said. "You're supposed to lean everything to the right. Mine is like a left-handed deal, although I'm right-handed.
"But that became a lot easier for me because I got so used to going around in circles on the race track that way."
That last part, the King was kidding.
I'm pretty sure he was.

[Ripken8fan55]

SWEET lookin goodies Alex!! Love the Petty auto! Congrats!

Tom