A living legend in the world of racing if ever there was one, Richard Petty has won an incredible 200 races in his career, holding one of his many records as a seven time winner of the Daytona 500. Other than Dale Earnhardt, he is the only racer to ever win the NASCAR Championship seven times, a record he is justifiably proud of.

Over 35 years in the sport, Richard Petty competed in no less than 1184 NASCAR Sprint Cup races. Not only does he have 200 wins to his record, but also has had 712 top ten finishes. He is considered one of NASCAR’s all time greats and perhaps even the greatest, having had 513 consecutive starts between the years 1971 and 1989.

Richard Petty is actually a second generation racecar driver. Lee Petty, his father, won the first Daytona 500 in 1959 and was a 3 time NASCAR Champion. Richard Petty’s son, Kyle is also well-known in the NASCAR circuit. His grandson, Adam was killed in a racing accident at New Hampshire International Speedway just five weeks after the death of Lee.

The Petty family owns and operates Petty Enterprises, his family’s racing team. Based out of an enormous 100,000+ square foot former Yates Racing facility, he is still active in the organization and is as always popular with the fans and is to this day commonly asked to sign autographs.

He got his start in racing at the age of 21 and was 1959’s NASCAR Rookie of the Year with a record of 9 top 10 finishes (6 of these were top 5 finishes!). He continued to be one of the sport’s top racers right up to his 1992 retirement; his last top 10 finish was in the 1991 Budweiser at the Glen race.

Petty is well known for surviving three dramatic crashes, including one at the 1970 Rebel 400, where his car lost a tire, slammed into the wall and flipped several times. Amazingly, Petty suffered only a shoulder injury, although the incident prompted the league to begin requiring safety netting for the driver’s seat in all subsequent races.

In 1980, at Pocono, he broke his neck and kept the injury hidden for the next few races. In 1988 at the Daytona 500, his crash sent parts everywhere after numerous flips and he sustained temporary vision loss from the g-forces, but otherwise walked away uninjured.

Richard Petty was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1997. He was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers in 1998 and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by George H W Bush in 1992, the first sports figure to receive the honor.

Richard Petty was known for his accessibility to his fans, where he would sign autographs for hours and he increased the popularity of the racing sports. He has been featured in movies as himself, such as Speed Zone, Stroker Ace with Burt Reynolds, and the 2008 movie, Swing Vote, besides the 1972 video release, The Petty Story.

Richard Petty has spent nearly his entire adult life in the world of racing and he is still active in NASCAR (though no longer behind the wheel) even now.

Serena Williams really needs no introduction. At present, she is the number one ranked female player in the world of professional tennis. At only 27, she has won a total of 20 Grand Slam titles (8 women’s doubles, 2 mixed doubles and 10 singles), has held all four Grand Slam titles at once and is the current champion in the Australian Open and the US Open. Williams is nothing less than a living legend in tennis and was named Tennis magazine’s 17th best athlete of all time in 2005. She is sure to achieve much more yet as an athlete and enjoys incredibly popularity with fans.

The youngest of five children, her family moved to Los Angeles, where her father decided to begin coaching all of his children in tennis on the public courts in Compton. Serena and her sister Venus especially took to the game, with Serena willing her first tournament before the age of five! By the time she was ten, she had already won 46 tournaments.

Serena and her siblings were all home schooled. Serena’s father, hoping to avoid his daughters having to face racism, stopped sending them to national junior tennis tournaments. Serena then attended a tennis school run by professional player Rick Macci in Haines City Florida. During those times, she sometimes trained with Andy Roddick, who Serena actually beat one time in a practice match.

All these years of training built Serena into an incredible player. While she is best known as a baseline player, her technique consists of taking control of the rallies and Williams is considered to be one of the more aggressive players in the sport. Her serve, return and ground strokes whether fore or backhand are known for their power. Her serves are known as among the best in tennis, winning admiration from players, sportscasters and fans at every match. She serves at a high speed, regularly meeting and even exceeding 120 mph (she broke a record with her serves of 127 and 129 mph at Charleston in 2008). Her return serve can overpower opponents; and she hits both topspin and flat serves on either corner of the service box.

Aside from her playing style, Serena is also known for her unusual and colorful outfits on court. Her family has opened a clothing line named Aneres. She also made several television and movie appearances. She also posed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She eventually made a lucrative career as a product endorser. In May 2004, Serena William’s partnership with Nike debuted custom-designed sports apparel. Serena also received the Celebrity Role Model Award from Avon Foundations in 2003 for her participation in the breast cancer drives. She also had her charities to spend time with off the court. In November 2008, she funded the construction and completion of a secondary school in Kenya.

Generally considered one of the best players in the NBA, Dallas Mavericks point guard Jason Kidd is known by teammates, opponents and fans as a formidable player. He led the New Jersey Nets to two consecutive NBA finals in 2003 and 2003 before joining up with the Mavericks.

He started his NBA Career with the Dallas Mavericks, went to play for Phoenix, and was traded to New Jersey before returning back to Dallas in February, 2008. In April, 2008, he achieved his 100th career triple-double in the final regular season game.

Born in San Francisco, the oldest of 6 children, Jason Kidd would often play on the public city basketball courts in the Oakland area and often against NBA All-Star Gary Payton. The two still talk about those early days.

During high school, Jason received the Naismith Award for the nation’s top high school player, and ended up going to college at University of California in Berkley. Jason Kidd was named a finalist for the Naismith and Wooden Awards as college basketball’s top player and decided to enter the NBA draft in 1994. Berkley retired his number 5 jersey when he left.

Kidd’s achievements are impressive: he was a member of the All-NBA First team from 1999 to 2002 and in 2004, is a one time NBA All-Star and won 2003’s NBA Skills Challenge Championship. As if this weren’t enough, he also was a member of the 1995 NBA All-Rookie First Team and made the All Defensive First and Second Teams from 1999 to 2007!

In 2008, Jason Kidd was on the 2008 Olympic Gold Medal winning US Men’s Basketball team, along with other basketball greats, who went undefeated. In USA Basketball, he has an undefeated record of 56-0 including exhibition games. He has brought home a total of five gold medals, in his Olympic participations of 2000 and 2008 games.

As amazing as his basketball career has been, his personal life has been rocky at times. He was arrested and pled guilty to charges of domestic abuse in 2001. Kidd entered counseling, anger management courses and quit drinking; he later reconciled with his wife.

However, he filed for divorce in 2007, claiming his wife was insanely jealous, paranoid and had threatened to file false reports of abuse. His wife filed as well, claiming physical abuse. The two have three children together.

A year later, it was reported that Jason Kidd was expecting another child with girlfriend and model Hope Dworaczyk.

Despite personal problems, Kidd was one of two players in NBA history to record at lease 14,000 points, 6600 rebounds and 9,000 assists. He joined the ranks of Walt Chamberlin and Magic Johnson as one of three players to average a triple-double for multiple playoff series games. He was named the USA Basketball’s 2007 Male Athlete of the Year. He has been a consistent super-star and an all time triple-double leader with 101, behind Oscar Robertson with 181 and Magic Johnson with 138.

Jason Kidd is one of the most accomplished players in the NBA - he has achieved much already in his career and this NBA legend and Olympic athlete may have a lot of surprises left on his career. He is also active in social work, sponsoring a variety of programs for Dallas area young people.