What happens when you put a Formula 1 Champion and a NASCAR Champion in a car together and send them out for a slow lap of Darlington Raceway? You get magic — especially when the drivers involved are Jackie Stewart and Richard Petty. Get ready for the most informative lap of your life.
This past weekend saw NASCAR’s annual throwback weekend at Darlington, and the NASCAR Classics YouTube channel also gave us a great throwback: a two-minute clip of Cup Series legend Richard Petty taking F1 legend Jackie Stewart out for a lap of the track in 1973, breaking down everything a racer would need to know to be competitive.
This video is honestly such a joy to watch. The mutual respect between Stewart and Petty is palpable; Stewart asks insightful questions about the best way to leave pit lane, and which foot Petty uses to brake, while Petty describes the best way to exit pit lane and blend back into the racing line.
The camaraderie is unexpectedly great between these men. As the lap comes to an end, Stewart notes, “There’s a little bit of blue paint up there [on the barrier] as well, Richard.”
“There’s a little bit of all colors, but there’s a whole lot of blue on this track. I’ve been running here about 13 or 14 years, and this is the kind of place where you don’t never learn because the track changes probably more than any race track we run on,” Petty responds with a smile. “I’ve had quite a few brushes with the wall.”
Stewart is best known internationally for three World Driver Championships in F1, but here in America, race fans of a certain generation likely know him better for his commentary. Periodically throughout his racing career and then more regularly after he retired from motorsport, Stewart served as a commentator for various motorsport events on ABC, including plenty of NASCAR. Here’s a clip of Stewart commentating on the Daytona 500 three years later: