One of the greatest engine builders of any race series will be inducted tonight into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Maurice Petty, the “silent” figure at Petty Enterprises but the force behind the Hemi power and multiple driver championships for brother Richard, takes his place in the Hall. The following information is pulled from a NASCAR press release covering his career.

A self-taught mechanic, the 74-year-old Petty built and tuned engines not only for Richard, but also father Lee Petty, Buddy Baker, Jim Paschal and Pete Hamilton. Richard and Lee Petty have already been inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, as is cousin Dale Inman, so Maurice completes the family sweep.

“He (also) drove the truck and worked as a tire changer,” praises Richard Petty. “He was the complete package. We just had our own little part and we kept to it. We were all successful. We didn’t think about it at the time, we were too busy getting ready for the next race. But, I guess now they have recognized us for everything. It was just a real team effort by all of us.”

“Maurice and the Pettys kept their cars to a very, very high standard,” says former Petty Enterprises crew member Robin Pemberton, now NASCAR’s vice president of competition and racing development in an interview published by the Charlotte Observer in May 2013. “They never had mechanical failures. The old saying was that there’s a right way, a wrong way and the Petty way of doing things.”

“There were no computers; no engineers,” adds Leonard Wood, the NASCAR Hall of Fame crew chief for the rival Wood Brothers organization. “What you came up with, you came up with yourself. You didn’t want anyone else to have it. He’s probably kept some of those secrets up until now.”

Petty, who has also been inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, worked with Chrysler, Ford and GM engines, but his reputation with the Hemi is most notable. The success of the Pettys in the mid-’60s eventually led NASCAR to mandate that all parts be available to all.

“I wasn’t the brains behind it and the motor was around since the ‘50s,” he said in an article published in 2013 by the Greensboro News & Record. “Lee raced a Hemi in ’52 and ’54. Back then, it had to be a production road engine before you could put it in. I first got my hands on one in 1963. We didn’t have a dyno or anything. You just built it and crossed your fingers.”

Petty, who overcame polio as a child, had a brief driving career — running 26 premier series races with seven top-five and 16 top-10 finishes between 1960 and 1964. A 1961 Daytona 500 accident effectively ended Lee Petty’s driving career and to keep the business afloat, he decided that Richard should drive and Maurice would work behind the scenes.

The Hall of Fame induction ceremonies will carried live by FOX Sports 1, starting at 7pm EST.