THE HAT STORY

When Richard Petty decided to retire from driving,

he realized that he wanted to wear his Western Style

Hat while in the pits the next year. Richard knew he

needed ear protection from the loud noise in the pits.

Richard ask us what we could do to allow him to wear

his hat and have ear protection at the same time.

I designed and constructed a clip-on boom mounted

microphone with a receive jack for his ear speaker

system as I had designed for his car. In the process of

developing the Hat System I needed one of his Hats to

mount the system on, and a test model to wear the hat

while adjustments were being made. King Richard sent

me the hat and I had the test model, my wife.

King Richard doesn't use the Hat System any longer

because with progressive hearing loss he needed a

system that could produce a greater volume level

than was produced by the ear speakers. That is why

he now uses headphones.