Tim Richmond - All But Forgotten
by LIZ CLARKE, Charlotte Observer — 1994
There was a time not long ago when Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond were the flat-out coolest guys on the track.
Earnhardt was the heart of Southern stock car racing in his too-tough Wrangler jeans, denim shirt and cowboy hat. Richmond had his own style-Armani suits, silk shirts, and Rolex watch.
And, oh, how they raced--diving into into the corners after each other on the brink of losing control, barreling down the straightaways door-to-door.
Then Tim Richmond got AIDS and died on Aug. 13, 1989.
Does Earnhardt miss racing against Richmond? He glares at the question. "I miss him, period," Earnhardt says. "He was a friend."
Others in NASCAR would rather forget.
"It's something that a lot of people in racing would like to forget happened— that there even was a Tim Richmond, that Tim Richmond died the way he died," says H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, president of Charlotte Motor Speedway.
In a sport that memorializes it's drivers, it's hard to find even a trace of Richmond around stock car racing's tracks.
Other fallen champions, like Davey Allison and Alan Kulwicki, have become heroes in death. Today, there's scarcely evidence Richmond competed among them, despite winning 13 races and $2.3 million in just six full seasons. "This is the first time I've ever heard his name, and I've been working the circuit 4 or 5 years," said a woman selling souvenirs last month at Pocono Raceway, where Richmond won four races— the last, when he knew he was dying.
Kyle Petty, a friend and fellow racer, sums it up this way: "If the good die young— and everyone from James Dean to Marilyn Monroe to Alan and Davey are those guys— when they die, there's an instant shrine. So why is Richmond standing on the outside looking in? Why is he not part of that group? Why did no one grieve for the lost potential of Tim?"
In 1986 he won seven races and eight poles, more than any driver that season.
Richmond thrived in the spotlight, and in 1986 he was in it like never before. He was named NASCAR's Driver of the Year with Earnhardt at the season-ending December banquet in New York.
Within a week, he was hiding behind the name Lee Warner at Ohio's Cleveland Clinic, where he was diagnosed with aquired immune deficiency syndrome on December 10 as Case No. 1-861-775-7. He'd come back to win two more races, then disappear again.
In his second comeback attempt, Richmond found himself pitted against NASCAR and the sport's establishment in a battle as hopeless as his fight against AIDS.
This time, he was in the spotlight of his life: Wrongly suspended for a drug test NASCAR said he failed, although he hadn't; later reinstated, but barred from racing until he turned over medical records that would have shown he had AIDS. Richmond refused, fired back with a $20 million lawsuit and slipped from view again, leaving behind nothing but innuendo and intrigue.
He died at age 34 in a West Palm Beach, Fla., hospital. His parents were nearby, but he was cut off and shut out from nearly everyone in racing. It was a tragic ending. But the build-up, well, that was as entertaining as Richmond himself. Having fun was the whole point. Every day was Christmas; every night, Saturday night.
Until dawn, at least, where his story ends.