Tim Richmond

I didn't know Tim on a close personal level, I really only knew him from the race track and the way he treated me. I was probably in the 7th or 8th grade and I would have to imagine that Tim was probably 18 or 19, he may have been older. But from my perspective we were just kids and we kind of hung out together so to speak. He was more my idle than I was his :) any way the first time I ever met Tim he was driving the Full Bore Roadster which was orange and indicative of the old style roadsters with the indystyle oil cooler on the side. Tim was always the nicest guy to be around, laid back and not cocky in the least, he was running steady at lorain county and sandusky. His car was in a wreck or something to that effect and Tim was looking for a bolt, I was always paying attention to what his crew was doing and saw they were in a dilemma, we always carried this old box of bolts in an old surplus army ammo canister, Tim Richmond and I looked through this old box of oily bolts for the one he was looking for, suffice it to say we found it.

The real story comes into play after Tim had left and went on to super V's, we had built a new car and it wasn't running right. My dad got in a wreck and suffice it to say only one wheel was left on the car. Having helped out Tim's crew on several occasions, I don't know if Al Richmond was there when we wrecked or what. I hadn't seen Tim in quite some time, but all I knew was that we were on our way to Ashland to look at this spare chassis that they had, I don't know if my dad was going to buy it or if Al was going to race it. We arrived in Ashland and I was extremely disappointed in the fact that Tim wasn't around as I figured that for sure he was going to be there. Tim's house at the time was out in the country and the house sat back from the road with a winding driveway leading down to the garage. My dad, grandfather, Al, and Paul Baumhauer were in the garage looking at the frame.

Then two cars pulled into the drive and it was long enough you could get your foot into it a bit, well here comes this corvette and a Porsche zipping down the driveway. Standing in the garage and stepping out into the darkness of the night I could see Tim and his long hair, one girl got out of each of the cars and proceeded to head into the house. Tim walked into the garage and this short guy was with him, I'm looking and looking at this guy and all of a sudden it dawns on me that it's Jackie Stewart. I'm looking right at Jackie Stewart, he proceeded to come into the garage and started to look at the chassis with us, at the time only the tail was on the car, he proceeded to ask me about the car and how fast it could go, I told him that depended upon the track and gear ratio, he then went into this elaborate conversation with me about aerodynamics and how if they cut the center section of the tail out and put some type of wing pivot there it would go faster. The conversation wound up and we headed home, I did manage to get Jackie Stewarts autograph, It took me most of the remainder of the night to get up the courage to ask him for it. In addition, somewhere along the way I lost the damn thing.

Those are some of my fondest memories of Tim Richmond, his humbleness and his ability to relate to even a kid. I did see Tim one other time when they had him at Sandusky for some type of autograph session. It was the funniest thing as I had grown up and when I walked up to him he was signing autographs. I waited until most of the people had gone, walked up to him and said hay how ya doing. He looked and looked and finally I said to him you don't recognize me do ya. He said with that sly grin and smile, "ya look kinda familiar" I told him who I was and he said damn you've grown. So my recollections of Tim are more of who he was before he made it in the big time. A humble guy with all the right stuff, and in thinking about one of his final interviews before he died, he said "I'd like to be remembered as somebody who drove the wheels off of a car." That's the way I'll always remember.. him hands clinched to the Full Bore roadster coming out of turn 2 at lorain wide open in a nice full arch all the way to the top of the groove. Silver Boots and very narrow opening simpson helmet.
  from Super Dave's Reader Stories, written by Grant Sams