Got to hand it to NASCAR. Last weekend, after all the hand wringing over the new aerodynamics, new tires, new sponsor, no cigarettes and no Pontiacs, along with a rained out Busch Series race, they managed to put on not just one, but two exciting, classy shows, the Daytona 500 on Sunday and the conclusion of the Hershey's 300 Monday in Daytona, Florida.
Of course, it's easy for those of us who are Dale Earnhardt, Jr. fans to call both the Busch Race and the Nextel Cup race exciting. Since he won both of them. He presented a really class act in the post race activities as well. Although, I'll bet someone at Hersheys wonders why he grabbed the oversized Kiss from the top of his car and threw it on the ground in Victory Lane.
The Associated Press ran an interesting article last week. I'm not sure, why, except that the Daytona 500 was going on. The article dealt with the brief, flaming life of Tim Richmond.
Richmond, who was from Ashland, burst onto the national scene as Rookie of the Year at the 1979 Indianapolis 500 just four years after getting into big time racing. Some of you may remember that his car ran out of fuel just before the end of the race and he hitched a ride back on the outside of a competitor's racer.
Richmond died ten years later of complications from AIDS. For the stodgy folks in NASCAR at the time, his legacy is that a drug-testing program was begun that continues today. For those of us who were his fans, his accomplishments on the track allowed us to overlook his faults off of it.
Richmond always denied using drugs but NASCAR acted on a positive drug test and kept him from attempting to qualify for the Daytona 500 in 1988. He responded by hiring an airplane to tow a banner over the track, saluting the fans.
It was a time when the stars of the series were good ol' Southern boys named Allison, Petty and Earnhardt. They came to the track in pickup trucks while Richmond arrived in limousines. The AP story quotes driver-turned-owner Richard Childress as saying that the sport would have been different if Richmond had lived to have a longer career in it.
He lived in the fast lane, dating and partying with Hollywood types.
He won 13 races in seven years and was voted one of the top 50 drivers in the history of NASCAR. 1986 was his best year. He led the series in wins with seven and finished third in the points. Late in the year, according to the AP, he checked into Cleveland Clinic and was diagnosed with AIDS. In those days there was no hope for AIDS victims. Methods of protection were not too well known, either.
He drove only eight times the following year, claiming he was suffering from a bad case of pneumonia. The following year he was dead.
Ironically, it later turned out that the positive test was for a legal, over-the-counter medicine.