Richard Petty, like legends of old, will not go quietly into thy good night. Auto racing`s legendary ”King” will have a rip-roaring sendoff not only from ESPN, which is carrying Petty`s final race Sunday, but from The Nashville Network as well.
TNN, which covers the stock-car racing circuit with the same thoroughness it covers country music, combines the two for a live three-hour special,
”Alabama Salutes Richard Petty,” at 6 p.m. Saturday.
On the racing front, Bob Jenkins will host the ESPN telecast, which starts at 11:30 a.m., with analysts Ned Jarrett and Benny Parsons joining reporters Jerry Punch and John Kernan.
For Parsons, Petty`s retirement after 200 victories in 1,184 races is special because of the generosity Petty showed, not necessarily for his success.
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”My favorite Richard Petty memory is 1975,” says Parsons, who had suffered through some tough times after winning the NASCAR title in 1973.
”Richard had the fastest car at the Daytona 500, but he split a radiator seam and he had to stop about every 12 laps to put water in the car. I was running second to David Pearson. Richard made his last water stop and happened to come back on the track right in front of me. I`d fallen behind David by three or four seconds.
”Richard waved to me and said, `You want to go catch that cat, come on, I`ll take you up there.` So I latched on and we started drafting along. I picked up about a second a lap, and pretty soon I`m about a second-and-a-half behind David with three laps to go. Then David spun coming off the second corner, and I went on and won the Daytona 500.
”If Richard Petty hadn`t dragged me along, I would never had been able to put the pressure on Pearson that I did. Richard Petty helped me to win the Daytona 500.”
– In the weekend`s other big event, Al Bernstein, the former Skokie resident who has joined ABC`s Alex Wallau as the two top boxing analysts on TV, will be ringside Friday night as part of Main Event Production`s pay-per-view telecast of the Evander Holyfield-Riddick Bowe heavyweight title bout.
”It certainly will be one of the most competitive and entertaining heavyweight championship fights in quite a while,” says Bernstein. ”For the first time since he`s been champion, Holyfield is in with someone who has a very good chance of beating him.
”The styles should dictate a terrific fight. Bowe tends to let himself fight inside a little too much. Holyfield would like to do what Pierre Coetzer did in his fight against Bowe, except he hits harder than Coetzer (who eventually was KO`d by Bowe) and has more skill. It`ll depend on which man is able to impose his kind of fight on the other guy.”
– Bernstein, who does a little entertaining around Las Vegas when he`s not broadcasting, could be moving in a different direction at ESPN. Besides working on all the boxing telecasts for the cable network, he`s going to ”do some basketball starting in December.”
Would Bernstein prefer to move to a broadcast network, like NBC, where he worked during the Summer Olympics?
”It was a lot fun doing the Olympics,” he says. ”And I got a lot of good feedback. This may sound funny, but I already have the best broadcasting job any boxing announcer could have because the networks only do (a certain)
amount of boxing a year. I`m assured of being on the air 35-40 times a year and being seen by an audience that just about rivals what the networks do on Saturday or Sunday afternoons.
”Sure, the attention I got during the Olympics was good. Unfortunately, it didn`t lead to more with NBC because even though NBC asked me, ESPN wouldn`t let me go.”
– TVKO, which will distribute Friday night`s telecast ($35.95 suggested price), has gotten out of the monthly fight business. Instead, TVKO is getting a fee from Main Event to market and produce the telecast. Previously, it had bought the rights to the fight, guaranteed the fighters` purses and took what profits it could. TVKO reportedly lost $2.75 million on last summer`s Holyfield-Larry Holmes fight, which had only 735,000 buys.
Lou Duva, Main Event`s promoter, says, ”We believe 1 million (buys) will be done for Friday night`s fight, which will give us a gross of $60 million.” That would be good news to a pay-per-view industry that has been floundering since the Holyfield-George Foreman fight in 1991 (1,450,000 buys). – Bulls guards B.J. Armstrong and John Paxson are featured in separate segments of this week`s ”NBA Inside Stuff” at 11 a.m. Saturday on WMAQ-Ch. 5. . . . CBS` Pat O`Brien and Bill Raftery co-host the syndicated ”College Basketball Preview,” featuring the Playboy All-American team, at 1 p.m. Saturday on WBBM-Ch. 2. . . . WLS-Ch. 7 will air the Washington-Washington State game as the second part of its Nov. 21 college football double-header, following the Michigan-Ohio State contest at 11 a.m. Also on that day, ESPN will show Pitt-Penn State at 3 p.m. and USC-UCLA at 6:30 p.m.. . . Jones Intercable in the Aurora area will have live coverage on Channel 51 of the NCAA Division III football playoff draw at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Aurora University (9-0) is ranked fourth in the NCAA North Region.