Preston Petty Passes Away
Larry Lawrence | January 16, 2022
Motorcycle Hall of Famer Who Popularized Plastic Fenders was 80
Preston Petty, a well-known off-road and motocross racer of the 1960s, who founded a company which popularized plastic fenders for off-road motorcycles, died in Texas last night, according to several close friends.
He was 80.
Petty was one of the first riders in the country to race Honda motorcycles. He also rode for America in three International Six-Day Trials (ISDT – now known as ISDE) events and was one of the early proponents of bringing European style motocross to America. Petty was perhaps best known for his ground-breaking plastic motorcycle component business, Petty Plastics. His innovative fenders changed the popular view of the time that plastic was junk when it came to off-road motorcycles. Petty fenders became the gold standard during the 1970s and nearly all serious racers scrapped their stock fenders for Petty units.
Petty was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.
In his later years Petty came back to racing and competed in Vet flat track and trials events, often on electric bikes wearing his trademark blue coveralls. According to friends, he’d been in failing health for a couple of years.
