Tim Richmond
Timothy Lee Richmond was an American race car driver from Ashland, Ohio. He competed in IndyCar racing before transferring to NASCAR's Winston Cup Series. Richmond was one of the first drivers to change from open wheel racing to NASCAR stock cars full-time, which later became an industry trend. He won the 1980 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award and had 13 victories during eight NASCAR seasons.
Richmond achieved his top NASCAR season in 1986 when he finished third in points. He won seven races that season, more than any other driver on the tour. When he missed the season-opening Daytona 500 in February 1987, media reported that he had pneumonia. The infection most likely resulted from his compromised immune system, which was weakened by AIDS. Despite the state of his health, Richmond competed in eight races in 1987, winning two events and one pole position before his final race in August of that year. He attempted a comeback in 1988 before NASCAR banned him for testing positive for excessive over-the-counter drugs, ibuprofen and pseudoephedrine; NASCAR later announced it gave Richmond a new test and tested negative. Richmond filed a lawsuit against NASCAR after the organization insisted it wanted access to his entire medical record before it would reinstate him. After losing the lawsuit, Richmond withdrew from racing. NASCAR later stated its original test was a "bad test."
Richmond grew up in a wealthy family and lived a freewheeling lifestyle, earning him the nickname "Hollywood". In describing Richmond's influence in racing, Charlotte Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler said, "We've never had a race driver like Tim in stock car racing. He was almost a James Dean-like character." When Richmond was cast for a bit part in the 1983 movie Stroker Ace, "He fell right in with the group working on the film," said director Hal Needham. Cole Trickle, the main character in the movie Days of Thunder, played by Tom Cruise, was loosely based on Richmond and his interaction with Harry Hyde and Rick Hendrick.
Early life
Richmond grew up in Ashland, Ohio. His parents, Al and Evelyn Richmond, met in the course of their work. Al was a welder for pipe construction companies and Evelyn was a field office manager. Noticing that highway crews had to dig up the entire highway to lay pipe, Al designed a machine to bore underneath the highway. To market this invention, he founded Richmond Manufacturing, which eventually exported machines worldwide.Tim's driving days started as a toddler when he was given a go-kart that he often drove inside buildings and across his lawn. He later raced the kart at tracks in Moreland and New Pittsburg. Richmond grew up in a well-to-do family, and was sometimes therefore treated differently by his classmates, so his parents enrolled him in Miami Military Academy in Miami, Florida. During his years in Miami, Tim and his mother moved to Florida and his father stayed in Ohio. While home in Ohio over a summer break, he met local drag racer Raymond Beadle through lifelong friend Fred Miller. When Richmond reached the age of sixteen, his parents purchased him a Pontiac Trans Am, a speedboat and a Piper Cherokee airplane for his birthday. Yet his mother Evelyn often worried about spoiling her only son. She once said, "Tim was lazy...", and "... I did everything for him. I ruined him, I admit it. He was my whole life."
Richmond excelled in sports; he set a conference record in high hurdles and his high school football career was stellar enough that the academy retired his sports jersey after his gridiron days were over. Miami Military Academy named him Athlete of the Year in 1970. Richmond's other interests included flying, and he earned his private pilot license at age 16. Following high school graduation, Richmond attended Ashland University for about one year before dropping out.
Racing career
Open wheel racing
A friend of Richmond's father co-owned a sprint car and Richmond joined the team as a crew member for Dave Shoemaker. In 1976, 21-year-old Richmond took the car onto Lakeville Speedway at Lakeville, Ohio for some practice laps. "Somebody put a stopwatch on me," Richmond said. "I was running laps faster than Dave had been. It was the first time I had ever driven a race car." Richmond and his father found a red, white and blue-colored No. 98 car in Pennsylvania, which was the same number and paint scheme that Richmond used on model cars as a child. In his first competition at the track, officials placed Richmond in the slowest heat. He passed several cars before spinning out and breaking an axle. Although he made several attempts to get the car pointed in the right direction, the broken axle prevented the car from driving straight. After being towed to the pits, he parked the car for the rest of the event. Later that season, they towed the car to Eldora Speedway, only to have Richmond crash the car again. In response, Richmond's father fired him as the driver. The next season, Al Richmond bought a SuperModified better suited to his son's driving style. In 1977, Tim Richmond became both Sandusky Speedway's Rookie of the Year and the SuperModified class track champion.Richmond returned to racing sprint cars in the United States Automobile Club's national sprint car tour in 1978. Competing in 12 races, he finished 30th in points as the series' Rookie of the Year. That year he attended Jim Russell's road racing school at Willow Springs International Motorsports Park, setting a student course record. Richmond raced in a 1978 Mini Indy car event at Phoenix International Raceway, winning the Formula Super Vee support event in a Lola T620. The win attracted sponsors and attention from major owners like Roger Penske. He also competed in USAC's Silver Crown series.
Richmond's father bought an Eagle Indy Car chassis and an Offenhauser engine for the 1979 race at Michigan International Speedway. Richmond qualified 21st fastest with a lap, significantly slower than Bobby Unser's pole position speed. The race ended for him when his motor blew up on the fourth lap, and he finished last. Owner Pat Santello was looking for a driver to replace Larry Rice for his CART team at the following race at Watkins Glen International, so he gave Richmond a test at Willow Springs Raceway where he had previously set the student record. Santello hired Richmond, who then qualified 15th fastest for the event and finished in eighth place, the best of his IndyCar career. Richmond raced in three more events that season.
Also in 1979, Richmond tested Kenny Reece's unusual "3-to-1" Supermodified at a 7.5-mile high-speed oval test track in Ohio. The car was unique in that it featured 3 wheels on the right side for added grip on oval tracks, but only 1 wheel on the center of the left side, along with a left-offset aluminum Chevrolet ZL-1 V8 engine. Richmond was able to lap the test track at over 200 MPH, but found doing so in a car with no left front wheel slightly unnerving. The car was tested, but outlawed before it could actually be raced.
During practice for the 1980 Indianapolis 500, Richmond set the fastest unofficial practice speed of the month, besting even race favorite Johnny Rutherford in the vaunted Chaparral. His hopes for the pole were dashed with a crash in morning practice on the first day of qualifying. After repairs he qualified nineteenth for the race. He worked his way up to the top-ten during the race, led a lap, and finished ninth as he ran out of fuel at the end of the race. To the delight of the crowd, winner Rutherford gave him a ride back to the pits. He was named the 1980 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year. "I busted up a few Indy cars right after that," he said. "Milwaukee, Mid-Ohio. . . at Michigan I cut one in two. I was afraid my racing career would come to a halt. So when I got an offer to drive stock cars, I took it, and it turned out I liked driving them better."
NASCAR
President Joseph Mattioli III convinced Richmond to make the change to stock car racing on the NASCAR circuit. Richmond made his first NASCAR start two months after winning the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award. He debuted at the Coca-Cola 500 at Pocono on July 27, 1980, finishing twelfth in a D. K. Ulrich-owned Chevrolet. That season, he competed in five events, with two DNFs and three twelfth place finishes. Overall, he finished the 1980 season 41st in points.Richmond raced for three teams in 1981. He started the season by competing in 15 events for Ulrich. He had his first career top-ten finish, taking tenth place at Bristol Motor Speedway, soon followed by a sixth at Talladega and a seventh-place finish at Texas World Speedway. After Kennie Childers hired him away from Ulrich mid-season, Richmond had top-ten finishes at Pocono and Bristol. For the final seven races of the season, he drove for Bob Rogers and had a top 10 finish at Dover International Speedway. Overall for the season, Richmond had six top 10 finishes to place 16th in season points.
Richmond started 1982 without a ride before getting a one-race deal to drive for Mike Lovern's Fast Company Limited, Billie Harvey, at the Rockingham track. Richmond completed 112 laps of the 492-lap event to finish 31st, retiring from the race with engine problems. For the following event, Richmond was hired to drive J.D. Stacy's No. 2 car. In his first race for the team, Richmond earned his first career top-five finish when he placed fifth at Darlington Raceway. Returning to Pocono, he finished second, before winning his first race on the road course at Riverside, California the following week. Later that season, he earned his first pole position at Bristol. The tour returned to Riverside for the final race of the season where Richmond won his second race, sweeping both events at the track. Benny Parsons said that "watching Richmond go through the Esses was unbelievable". For the season, Richmond had twelve top-tens, two wins, and one pole to finish 26th in points.
In 1983, Richmond began racing for Raymond Beadle whom he had known before he started racing. He returned to the three-cornered Pocono racetrack, earning his first oval victory. During the season, he accumulated four pole positions, one win, and fifteen top 10s on his way to finishing tenth in season points. He made his first appearance in a NASCAR Busch Series car, but did not finish any of the three races he entered that season.
Esquire magazine named Richmond as one of "the best of the new generation" in 1984. That year he had one win at North Wilkesboro Speedway and second-place finishes at Dover, Darlington and Riverside. Richmond finished the 1984 season 12th in points, with eleven finishes in the top0tenand in six in the top-five. In 1985, the final season that Richmond competed for Beadle, his best finish was a second place run at Bristol. He ended the season eleventh in points with thirteen top-tens in 28 races. His crew chief for the season was newcomer Barry Dodson who won the 1989 championship with Rusty Wallace. In the Busch Series, he qualified at the pole position in the two races he entered, and won the Charlotte race.
Richmond joined Hendrick Motorsports in 1986, where he teamed up with veteran crew chief Harry Hyde. It took the team until the middle of the season to gel. Richmond had suffered a 64-race winless streak that was finally broken at the Van Scoy Diamond Mine 500 at Pocono in June 1986. After two straight second-place finishes at Charlotte and Riverside, Richmond started the Pocono event in third place inside the second row. That race saw a caution for rain with five laps left before the halfway point. NASCAR wanted the cars to get to the halfway point to make the race official, so the sanctioning body had the drivers slowly circle the track. It took the drivers 26 minutes to complete the laps, and the rain was so heavy that some drivers had to look out their side windows because they could not see out their windshields. Two hours later, the track had dried and the race resumed with Richmond in third. After Richmond's car was adjusted to remove the "push", the car was more to his liking. Because his radio did not work, he was unable to communicate with his crew chief, Hyde, and he made his final pit stop with 37 laps left. Hyde worried that Richmond had stopped a lap too early to ensure that he would have enough fuel to make it to the end. After Richmond took the lead with thirty laps left in the race, Dale Earnhardt made up three seconds on Richmond's five-second lead. With four laps to go, Buddy Arrington spun in a three-car accident. The remaining laps of the race where completed slowly under caution and Richmond took the checkered flag for the victory. He had led 97 laps, including the final thirty, taking his first victory in a Rick Hendrick car.
The tour returned to Pocono a month later, and Richmond battled for another victory in a fog-shortened event. In the final 8-lap sprint, Richmond competed in a three-car battle with Geoff Bodine and Ricky Rudd. Richmond crossed the finish line beside Rudd, winning the race by 0.05 seconds. He notched four more victories that season, and over a span of twelve races, Richmond earned three second-place finishes, and six wins. The National Motorsports Press Association named him Co-Driver of the Year with Earnhardt after Richmond accumulated 13 top 5 finishes and 16 in the top 10. He had a career-best third place finish in points after winning seven events in 1986, in what was his last full NASCAR season.