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.

"In a lot of ways, it's an opportunity for them to create a legacy piece that puts everything in one place at one time. Before we even start producing, there's a lot of conversation that goes on with the family members so we're all on the same page. Then, once you start rolling, they forget the cameras are there. They open up very, very easily."

Here's the rub, though. Because the Petty family has been involved in NASCAR since Day One, it opens a more than 60-year window of content to sift through. In the end, enough material hit the cutting room floor to produce the movie 50 times over or more. Some of the cuts may raise a few eyebrows -- there's no mention of STP, the company that sponsored Petty and his teams for more than 30 years. There's no 1976 Daytona 500, Petty's closest and most famous loss. The majority of his championships and Daytona 500 wins aren't mentioned.

Petty is truly one of the most recognizable names in NASCAR history, and one of the greatest racing families in the history of motorsports. Narrated by Academy Award winner Kevin Costner, "Petty Blue" is an in-depth look into the royal family of racing.

• Order the DVD

STP, the 1976 Daytona 500 and several other clips are included in the DVD's deleted scenes, and they're fantastic. Their exclusion is the result of many, many hard decisions.

"The most difficult part of the editing process was deciding what to leave in and what to cut out," said Mike Viney, who directed Petty Blue. "In telling the story of four generations of the Petty family, we had to condense more than 100 hours of footage into a 90-minute film. A situation like that causes a lot of headaches for us, but ensures a highly entertaining, informative and quality move for NASCAR fans, history buffs and everyone in between."

Petty laughs when asked about things that were left out.

"Just like I told them guys, I said, 'If you want to go and do a whole Richard Petty deal, you'd have to do a series,' " Petty quipped. "There was a bunch left out that probably needed to be in it, but there wasn't room for everything."

The film deals with the intensely emotional issue of Adam Petty's fatal accident in a 2000 practice session at New Hampshire. It's hard watching at times, for all too many reasons. The moment Lynda Petty describes her husband's reaction to Adam's passing, it's clear that Petty Blue is something altogether different, a cut above.

"When we sat down and talked, we looked at the overall [production] being around racing, not necessarily nothing but racing," Petty said. "This is the true Richard Petty life. Racing is just part of it. You had your ups and your downs in racing, your ups and down in losing family members. Hey, I watched it and got emotional with it. I thought they did a super job in portraying the whole, everyday deal. It's not just all glory. It's not just winning races and being the hero or whatever."

Petty appears never to have put the brakes on. His controversial illegal engine debacle in the fall of 1983 at Charlotte is here, as is the recent closing of Petty Enterprises. That episode left Kyle Petty without a ride, and that's discussed as well. As wrenching as it must have been to re-live such moments from his life, it's the picture Petty wanted to paint, warts and all.

"I was trying to get the true Richard Petty out there," Petty concluded. "A lot of people know about you from winning races, but they don't know other things about how your life developed or why you did things or when you did them. I told told 'em it was pretty much an open book. I've never been put in jail or got [caught] drunk driving or none of that kind of stuff. I didn't feel any of [the emotional parts in Petty Blue] was a character teardown.

"I looked at it from the standpoint ... if different people have got you as a role model, I wanted to show them the whole atmosphere -- the good, the bad, the indifferent, the trouble we had, the trouble we didn't have, the trouble we caused, the trouble somebody else caused. I wanted to make it as true as they could. They didn't try to cover up anything. If we done bad, they showed it. If we did good, they showed it."

Related:
• Petty included in inaugural Hall of Fame class | Video tribute to the King