From the Star-Gazette...
WATKINS GLEN - There's a Beatles song that begins, "It was 20 years ago today ..."
It was 20 years ago - actually Aug. 9 - that NASCAR thunder roared back into Watkins Glen after a long absence. On that day, Tim Richmond threw his Winston Cup car into Turn 1 like nobody else on the way to winning the Bud at the Glen.
Exactly 17 years ago today, Tim Richmond died.
"He was one of a kind," said Charlotte Observer racing beat writer David Poole, who wrote a book about Richmond. "I think he was just starting to realize his potential and his life ended too soon. I truly believe he could have won a lot more races, and there was something in him that made him better with every win."
In August 1986, Richmond was in the middle of one of the best streaks of racing any NASCAR driver has enjoyed. He won six races and finished second four times from June to September. The Ashland, Ohio, native won Co-Driver of the Year that year along with Dale Earnhardt.
"We had him beat that year here at Watkins," said Geoff Bodine, who was a Hendrick Racing stablemate of Richmond's. "We had him beat and blew an engine. But Tim was the best teammate I ever had. You could trust him. If he waved and wanted you to follow, he wouldn't hang you out. And he always raced clean, never bumped anybody to get by."
Richmond won at the Glen in 1986 by outbraking everyone going into Turn 1, also known as "The Ninety," and sliding around the corner with reckless abandon.
Complications resulting from AIDS took Richmond's life at age 34 back in a time when little was known about the disease. Partly because of that, it was reported that Richmond's last few dealings with NASCAR were contentious, and he ended up being banned from the Daytona 500 in 1988 after testing positive for a banned substance. That year Richmond paid for a banner to be flown over Daytona International Speedway that read, "Fans, I miss you. Tim Richmond."
This morning, between 11 a.m. and noon, a banner is scheduled to appear in the sky over Watkins Glen International. The sign will read, "Tim Richmond, we miss you. Your fans." The sign honoring the memory of Richmond is partly the idea of Mark Weaver of Clay, N.Y. Weaver is part of a group of Richmond fans funding the banner.
"I was a modified racer when Tim was in NASCAR and I always liked the way he drove," said Weaver, who will be in the Turn 11 grandstand with eight friends when that plane flies overhead today with the Richmond tribute. "We just wanted to do something that showed the positive side of Tim and to try and keep alive his memory and the contributions he made to NASCAR racing."
Weaver has even taken to driving an old Monte Carlo dressed up just like the maroon No. 25 Folgers Coffee Monte Carlo that Richmond drove. Weaver said support for the fly-over idea came from Richmond fans who live as far away as Florida.
"I've always thought Tim deserved to be remembered with all the great drivers," Weaver said. "This banner idea is a way to keep the fans thinking about him."
