Petty was the father of Winston Cup great Richard Petty, grandfather of Kyle Petty and great-grandfather of Adam Petty, who made his Winston Cup debut last weekend in Texas.

Lee Petty was one of the princes of racing during the stock car circuit's infancy in the 1940s and 1950s.

"There wasn't any better driver than Lee Petty in his day," Junior Johnson, another early stock car star, said Wednesday. "There might have been more colorful drivers, but when it came down to winning the race, he had as much as anyone I've ever seen."

Beginning with an eight-race schedule in 1949 -- the same year he founded what became Petty Enterprises -- he went on to win 55 races. He was a three-time champion on what now is the Winston Cup circuit. He won the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959, driving a 1959 Oldsmobile '88 bearing his trademark No. 42.

In Level Cross, home of Petty Enterprises, the No. 42 flag flew at half staff Wednesday.

"He was a great guy. You never would know he was who he was," said Jean Handy, a service station assistant manager.

Petty and his wife lived in the same simple white frame home at Petty Enterprises, next to the race shop and museum, where they raised sons Richard and Maurice.

"They are tight, a real family," said Doris Gammons, who works at the Richard Petty Museum. "They are just plain, simple country people."

Richard Petty began racing under his father's tutelage in 1958 and eventually surpassed his father's Grand National championships. Along the way, he inherited his father's fierce competitive streak.

During Richard Petty's first race at a North Carolina dirt track in 1959, when it initially appeared he had beaten his father, the elder Petty protested loudly. Race officials later changed their ruling and declared Lee Petty the winner.

"I would have protested even if it was my mother," Lee Petty said.

Petty's best season was 1959, when he beat Johnny Beauchamp at Daytona in a photo finish that wasn't decided for three days.

His 55 wins placed him seventh on the list of the winningest drivers in NASCAR Winston Cup history. Richard Petty ranks first with 200.

Johnson said Lee Petty adopted a businesslike approach to racing when the sport was rougher than it is now.

"We never had anything vicious on the track," Johnson said. "If he could get in a hole, he got in it. When the race was over, he hooked up and went home."

Lee Petty checks out a race car with sons Richard (right) and Maurice at the family shop in North Carolina. (AP)

Petty sustained a serious setback on Feb. 24, 1961, during a 100-mile qualifying race at Daytona. He tangled with Beauchamp and their cars hurtled over a guard rail, soaring more than 100 feet before crashing in the parking lot.

Petty suffered a punctured lung and broken leg. He raced occasionally during the next three years, starting six times, before retiring from driving in 1964 to devote more time to the mechanics side of racing.

Petty, a master mechanic, was voted Mechanic of the Year in 1950 and most popular driver in 1953 and 1954.

"I've always felt the man who works the hardest gets the most out of it," he once said.

At the Richard Petty Museum, two of the nine cars are devoted to Lee Petty -- a 1926 Ford Model T similar to the first car he owned, and a '59 Oldsmobile like the one he rode to victory in at Daytona. On three shelves beside the Model T are the 64 trophies Lee Petty won, including the three Grand Nationals from 1954, 1958 and 1959.

"You can't lose somebody who has been that big in the sport without feeling it personally," Winston Cup driver Jeremy Mayfield said. "Everybody in NASCAR lost a really important member of the family today."

Petty is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; sons Richard and Maurice; nine grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; and one brother.

A private graveside service for family will be held this week.