Fit, Fast, and Feisty

By SAM MOSES, Sports Illustrated

Last year Tim Richmond was the flamboyant bad boy of NASCAR. He lived the way he drove: He never let up. During an electric and sustained burst of brilliance over one I2-race span, he won six times and was second four times. Off the track, he burned the candle at both ends, with a blowtorch. He decided he wanted to be a movie star, and a Hollywood publicity agency kept him spread thin doing interviews and providing photo opportunities. Richmond also was dutifully making promotional appearances for sponsors and racetrack promoters. And for most of the season he fought off a sore throat and increasing tiredness.

Finally, in December, during a photo session in Charlotte for one of his team's sponsors, he had uncontrollable chills. Richmond was escorted back to his family's home in Ashland, Ohio, by his big sister, Sandy, and was checked into the Cleveland Clinic. There he was diagnosed as having acute double pneumonia, and a medical team was assigned to monitor him around the clock. He nearly died on his second day at the clinic, and it wasn't until 24 days later that he could be released.

While Richmond spent the first five months of this year recuperating, defending Winton Cup champion Dale Earnhardt scorched the NASCAR circuit, winning 6 of the first 11 races. But Richmond finally got back behind the wheel on June 14 for the Miller High Life 500 at Focono, Pa. He and Earnhardt ran up front most of the way, but near the end Earnhardt faded with a flat tire. Richmond says he almost missed the checkered flag, his eyes were so full of tears. He continued his dramatic comeback with a second straight win a week later on the road course at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway.

Richmond is probably NASCAR's most charismatic, complicated and gifted driver - his bout with pneumonia has not changed that. But because it was being Tim-for-others that made him sick - Evelyn Richmond says her 32-year-old son's big problem was that the word no was not in his vocabulary - there's now a new Tim Richmond. For one thing, he can say no.

"I know I could check out at any time in these race cars," says the new Richmond, "and that would be O.K. But dying from pneumonia wouldn't have been. It made me realize that time means too much to me now. I can't see wasting any of it in situations I don't want to be in."

The 1987-model Richmond also comes with a lot less flash. Gone is much of the flamboyance - and much of the vanity. Last year he wore "threads that make Don Johnson look like a bag lady," observed motor sports writer Godwin Kelly in the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Now he wears baggy slacks and T-shirts. Last year he would fly to a hairstylist in Miami to have his locks sculpted and frosted; this year Richmond's hair grows as it grows, cowlicks and all. Although he lost some 25 pounds during the illness, he's gained more than that back, and doesn't seem to mind the impending potbelly. "Before I got sick, I cared too much about what people thought of me," he says. "Now my goal is to enjoy Tim Richmond as Tim Richmond."

Part of that enjoyment seems to come from the way Richmond is resisting NASCAR's regimentation and high-handedness. At the Firecracker 400 in Daytona, for instance, he gave a TV interview while lying on his back on the pit wall; had an argument with NASCAR officials over the legality of the carburetor on his Monte Carlo SS; had a disagreement with other officials over NASCAR's demand that he have a medical exam; and had another fight about posing for photos in sponsors' hats. Then on the sixth lap of the race, Richmond became the object of some unwanted attention when another car spun into him, sending his car into a hair-raising spin through the thick of the 190-mph traffic. After repairs, Richmond was able to continue, but he finished 22nd in the damaged car.

When Richmond isn't busy twitting the establishment, he usually can be found in a crowd of adoring fans, in particular pretty girls and little kids. Observing a friend's whining and foot-stomping three-year-old, he joked, using the self-deprecating charm that often gets him out of scrapes. "Hey, kid. You're acting just like I have been all day."

Richmond has been a natural at sports and at getting attention all his life. His father, Al, recalls, "When Tim was little, if he went to the store for a quart of milk, he'd make us time how long it took him. And if you beat him at trapshooting, he'd want to fight you." Tim began learning to pilot airplanes at 13, about the same time he began cutting and showing quarter horses.

Though the family lived in Ashland, Tim was sent to the Miami (Fla.) Military Academy, where he starred in the 100-yard dash and set a conference record in the high hurdles. But he really stood out in football, and his jersey was retired after his four spectacular years as a 145-pound tailback. "He was very elusive, very explosive, and could bust a game wide open," says his former coach, Jim Thomas, who might be describing Richmond's driving today.

"The only trouble with Tim was that you couldn't get him in bed at night, and couldn't get him out of it in the morning," says Al, who might be describing the '86 Richmond. Al was president of the Richmond Holding Company until recently when he sold the very successful conglomerate. The business was so successful that for Tim's 16th birthday, Al bought his son a Pontiac Trans Am, a speedboat and a Piper Cherokee. Still, it's Evelyn who worries that she spoiled her only son. "Tim was lazy," she says, "and I did everything for him. I ruined him, I admit it. He was my whole life."

Evelyn now spends much of her time at Tim's house on Lake Norman near Charlotte. The arrangement might be called open parenting. "If Tim has company and he wants to party, we party," Evelyn says. "And if I don't like what's going on, I go outside in my bus." The "bus" is a lush motor home, which is docked in Tim's driveway whenever Evelyn isn't driving it to a race.

Actually, pinning down where the Richmonds live can get confusing. Al and Sandy spend most of their time in Ohio, while Tim and his mother seem to divide their time, together and separately, between Charlotte and a condo in Fort Lauderdale. That is also the hometown of Tim's girlfriend. Julie Beckwith, an optometrist to whom he has proposed at least three times: once in person, once over the radio on the Motor Racing Network and once on ESPN. Her response so far has been no.

When Tim turned 15 his father bought him a sprint car, and from the start he proved to be a sensational racer. He scorched the Ohio tracks for a few years; then Dad bought hint an Indy car. Tim was Rookie of the Year at the 1980 Indy 500, after which exuberance caught up with him. "I busted up a few Indy cars right after that," he says. "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."

It took him five seasons to make it to the top of the NASCAR heap. Along the way he went through a lot of teams and equipment. He also gained a reputation for unpredictable driving and occasional temper tantrums, although today he says, "Maybe I was a little impatient, but I was no nuisance like a lot of guys."

"I don't want to use the word inferiority complex," says coach Thomas, who still hangs with Tim, "but there's someplace between insecurity and ego where Tim's motivation fits in. He has that need to prove himself to himself every day, every time." Richmond agrees that he had a need to prove himself "every lap, to everybody that I ever drove for." He pauses and then adds,"I think in the back of my mind I was also trying to make Pops respect me a little bit."

But all that was before last year, when he signed with Hendrick Motor Sports and was teamed up with crew chief Harry Hyde. Hyde, 62, has been racing stock cars for 41 years, 21 of them in NASCAR, where he has 57 victories. "A lot of people give me credit for Tim's success, but I was just lucky enough to get him when he started maturing and was ready to win," says Hyde. "He just needed the confidence."

Which might be another way of saying that Richmond needed someone to show confidence in him."I never really got that from anybody before," Richmond says. "But Harry, from the start, made no bones about what he thought of my driving ability. With that, I had a lot calmer attitude when I hit the racetrack." He points to his head and adds, "I like to use this up here now. It's something new for me."

"Magnetic Tim," Hyde calls him. "He's got electrical current in him, and wherever he's at, it's on. I don't believe he knows himself what turns it on, because he would just as soon not have it sometimes. But hell, it even electrifies me. When he walks in and gets in that damn race car, everybody knows they're going to see a race - which is why the crowds love him too.

"Tim's back, and we're glad," Hyde adds. "And I think everybody else will be glad before it's over."