Michael Jordan grew up going on family weekend vacations to NASCAR races across the South. Accompanying him on these trips was his father, who was an avid fan of Richard Petty. This background ignited the interest of Jordan, otherwise a legendary NBA champion, to pursue stock car racing. And it also led to Jordan fulfilling Petty’s desire for the sport, which was published 30 years ago.

A past blueprint for the NASCAR lawsuit

“The more I think about it, the more it comes to mind that maybe we ought to have a franchise system,” Richard Petty wrote in an article in January 1995. “Let’s just say NASCAR sells everybody a car number. Then somebody coming into the sport has to buy a number rather than just walking in and buying equipment and hiring people and starting a race team. On the oth

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