For more years than he would probably care to count, Richard Petty's life has been an open book.

He's one of a handful of iconic athletes who very clearly defines a sport. Countless people -- even those who know virtually nothing about NASCAR -- are familiar with the Petty name and image. They easily recognize the tall, lanky frame, the easy-going grin, the cowboy hat and sunglasses. Fans can recite the man's stats as easily as their own Social Security number: 200 wins, seven championships, seven Daytona 500 wins, 27 wins in 1967, including 10 in a row.

“

They didn't try to cover up anything. If we done bad, they showed it. If we did good, they showed it.

”

-- RICHARD PETTY

They know Petty as the King. They know the racing legacies of his daddy, Lee; his son, Kyle; and Adam, his grandson. They know Lynda, his wife, and their daughters Sharon, Lisa and Rebecca. They're all on pedestals, the very picture of an All-American, NASCAR, hot dogs, apple pie and white-picket fence family.

That's the perception, as idealized as it might be. It's hard not to wonder how hard such familiarity is on Petty. That his successes have been so public is one thing, but the tragedies he and his family have experienced have also been laid bare for one and all. As difficult as that must be, that's what it means to be Richard Petty.

"This is 'normal' for Richard Petty," Petty said. "I've got nothing to compare it against, except what I do. I never look at that. You always hear people saying, 'This is average,' or 'That's average.' What is average?"

That so many people know so much about Petty was both blessing and curse to the makers of Petty Blue, a 90-minute biographical documentary produced by CMT and NASCAR Media Group that premieres Tuesday night in Charlotte. The project will be released Sept. 21 on DVD, and broadcast on CMT in October. Interest in the man obviously warranted such a project, yet was it even possible to give Petty fans something they didn't already know?

That was the tricky part, and it turned out to be very much a two-way street. For producers to get Petty's full cooperation and participation, they first had to gain his trust. CMT and NASCAR Media Group did so through a body of work with which Petty was familiar -- Dale: The Movie and The Ride of Their Lives. That did the trick. The efforts turned out to be two of the most engaging NASCAR-related documentaries ever produced, so one on Petty was very nearly a given.

"We've had a lot of different situations that people wanted to do something like this," Petty continued. "These guys ... they done the Dale deal, and then they did [one on] NASCAR history. I really enjoyed that. To me, they did a really, really good job on that. I said, 'OK, they're working with NASCAR. They've done this before. They've got the know-how of knowing where all this stuff's at, and NASCAR's gonna give it to them. They can get everything they need, to really make a complete picture out of it.'

"To me, they had a track record and I liked what I'd seen before in what they'd done. It made it easier for me to say, 'OK, let's do it.' "

With Petty's blessings in hand, CMT and NASCAR Media Group went to work. Collected were an amazing assortment of rare footage and photographs. Slowly, the layers began to peel back, revealing the man underneath the cowboy and behind the sunglasses.

"It's not as hard as people would think," said Jay Abraham, chief operating officer for NASCAR Media Group and vice president of content and new media. "When we go into these projects, we don't start them unless we have the full cooperation of the family and the key personalities. They realize that this is an opportunity not only for us to tell their story, but for them to tell their story the way they feel it should be told. (Continued)