Untill tonight that Tim Richmond died from AIDES.
MAY HE REST IN PEACE.
MAY HE REST IN PEACE.
I didn't know
- Thread starter kat2220
- Start date
7
71Fan
Guest
Yup, that Tim had aids was/is hushed up pretty good.
racer8
Team Owner
They covered it up pretty good back then. and kept it that way for a long time. but as anything else it eventually came out. I guess in those days it was thought of as something that happens only to bad people.
Well, let's face it, he had a hard time keeping his pants zipped. He loved the cuties and they loved him right back. NASCAR covered it up for a long time. From what I understand, even telling the other drivers not to visit him in the hospital.
He was one of the best I ever saw drive a stock car.
He was one of the best I ever saw drive a stock car.
ME TOO TRL!!!!
T
TN-Ward-Fan
Guest
No denying his talent.
No denying the stupidity of his death either.
NASCAR tried to cover that up, and succeeded to a large degree. I will probably get labeled as a conspiracy theorist here, but I could care less. NASCAR has some more skeletons they lock in various closets. I could name three that I strongly feel are there, but I have no intention of starting WWIII tonight.
Tim Richmond's death is second in stupidity only to Rob Moroso's. Both young talents with God only knows how much success ahead of them. We never will.
No denying the stupidity of his death either.
NASCAR tried to cover that up, and succeeded to a large degree. I will probably get labeled as a conspiracy theorist here, but I could care less. NASCAR has some more skeletons they lock in various closets. I could name three that I strongly feel are there, but I have no intention of starting WWIII tonight.
Tim Richmond's death is second in stupidity only to Rob Moroso's. Both young talents with God only knows how much success ahead of them. We never will.
6
66mustang
Guest
I know I'm stupid but could somebody fill me in on the whole Richmond story. I've only heard bits and pieces.
T
thechase77
Guest
I've heard a lot of good things about Tim Richmond. I wish i would have been around to see him race. Actually, I wish he was still around so i could watch him race
I'm up for hearing those conspiracy theories, Ward Fan
I'm up for hearing those conspiracy theories, Ward Fan
R
rpmallen
Guest
I don't know, I didn't really feel that it was covered up as much as it just was never talked about. I might be wrong. When he died in, I forget the year, 1989(?), the threat of Aides was just starting to become realized. Many people felt uncomfortable talking about it b/c they understood little about it. Tim dying of Aides isn't something that is so much hidden today, it's just a footnote in Nascar's ever-growing history. An interesting one though.
P
PettyBenson
Guest
Ok i never have known what happened to Rob Morso and since you brought him up. What happened to him? I rember watching old races form the early 90's and seeing him drive the #20 Fina car. So what happened to him and why is ther a cover up?
paul
Team Owner
It's AIDS. Not Aides.
R
rpmallen
Guest
Rob Moroso died in 1990 in a car accident.
If you are really interested or just curious in how drivers have died, there several sites that go through each driver. The most exhaustive list I'm aware of is at the following link:
http://tricklefan.topcities.com/supplement.../backthen1.html
If you are really interested or just curious in how drivers have died, there several sites that go through each driver. The most exhaustive list I'm aware of is at the following link:
http://tricklefan.topcities.com/supplement.../backthen1.html
T
TN-Ward-Fan
Guest
NASCAR steadfastly reported time and again that Tim Richmond had the flu. The flu, people. Perhaps his coroner report says "complications from the flu", but we all know how AIDS works. Tim Died of AIDS, and when the story began to leak, NASCAR not only denied it (until weeks after his death in fact) but forbade anyone to contact him or to contradict the official party line.
Yet in the face of this, we are supposed to believe everything they say.
There was no cover up on Rob Moroso's death. He died from injuries received while driving drunk after a race. Like I said, stupid.
H
HardScrabble
Guest
There was much confusion, secrecy and misunderstanding regrading Tim Richmond and the malady which led to his death. Most of the early speculations centered around drug use and its effects. The situation was clouded in misinformation, a situtation which was only worsened by Tim's refusal to go public with his diagonosis. It was at that time something that almost no one in the country and certainly few if any of thsoe in NASCAR had the faintest idea how to deal with.
Matt McLaughlin wrote extensively about Tim and his NASCAR career and life. The following is from the closing of those articles. For those not familiar with the story, and those that are, hopefully it will shed some light on the tragedy.
It was September 1986 when Harry Hyde, Tim’s crew chief, first noticed something was wrong, around the time Richmond won Darlington's Southern 500. "He looked awful bad, and he was taking antibiotics," Hyde says. "It looked to me like he had the flu or a cold. After Darling he got all right. I thought he was all right. But by Rockingham and the last two races, I could tell he was ... down. It was in his face and eyes." At NASCAR's December awards banquet, Wheeler thought he looked awful. "I could tell it was somthing worse than stress; he said he was exhausted," Wheeler said. "He was extremely disturbed about what he looked like." Within a week, Richmond was in the Cleveland Clinic, diagnosed with AIDS.
"I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANT"
Hendrick had never heard of AIDS before Evelyn Richmond, his mother, called to explain. "I didn't know what she was telling me," Hendrick said."It was like my first time .... I was confused. I didn't know what it actually meant - what the prognosis was. The more you found out - the more you just ... it hurt and it killed you." Richmond spend Christmas and New Years in the hospital, dwindling from 171 to 148 pounds. Rumors about drug use had dogged him since his IndyCar days. Most friends say they never saw drugs around him. Others say he never used "needle drugs."
When Richmond missed the 1987 Daytona 500 with what was reported to be double pneumonia, the rumors flew. Some said cocaine addiction. Others said AIDS. Kyle Petty didn't believe them any more than he believed Richmond had pneumonia. He thought it was cancer. Richard Petty, stock-car racing's King, felt then and now it was drugs. "There's a question in my mind about drugs - that at the time he was driving that race car, he was pumped up," Richard Petty says. "Whether he was or he wasn't, I'm always questioning that. I always will."
Richmond's return to racing in spring 1987 triggered a media frenzy. Hyde scheduled a secret practice at Darlington to see whether Richmond was physically able to come back. Word leaked out and reported showed up with stop watches. So Hyde slipped four left-side tires on to give the car an added edge.
Newspapers reported the next day Richmond was back, setting track-record speeds.
Next came an endurance test at Rockingham. Richmond tried to run 500 miles, but couldn't last more than 127. Hyde covered again, telling reporters, "Tim wanted to go on longer, but I pulled him in." Richmond was too weak to run Charlotte's Coca-Cola 600 in May, so he flew to Indianapolis for the Indy 500 instead. Linda Vaughn, racing's most famous beauty queen, got a call at her Indianapolis apartment shortly after midnight. He'd been partying and had to see her. "He fell into my arms, and his eyes rolled back, and he said, `What can I do? What can I do to make it up to you?'" says Vaughn, a longtime friend. "That's when he told me what was wrong. And I said, `Go back and kick ass and take names, because you are a racer." "..He had a deep, dark lonely side. He was like a little lost boy sometimes. He always used to sing, `I Want You to Want Me, I Want You to Love Me.' He used to drive me crazy with that song.
RETURN TO VICTORY LANE
Richmond had an edge when he returned to racing. "Testy", some said. "Not your normal Tim."
"He was never accepted when he came back," Richard Petty says. "Everyone knew he had trouble." Meaning AIDS? "Yep. It was just one of those things. Whether it was true or not, everybody said that's it, and so everybody kept their distance."
His first full-length race since the diagnosis was the Miller 500 at Pocono Raceway in June, 1987. Just before the start, Earnhardt walked over and slapped him on the back. "You ready to get it on?" Earnhardt asked. "Yeah!" Richmond said.
And when Richmond won the race, he cried so hard he couldn't see the checkered flag. Earnhardt, Kyle Petty, and Bill Elliott drove alongside to offer congratulations, and Richmond cried all the more. He made an extra victory lap to compose himself, but it didn't do any good. In Victory Lane, Richmond couldn't utter a word-just hugged his mother, whipped a towel in the air and started pouring beer everywhere. For Johnson, the team manager, there'll never be a moment like it. "I've got a 5-year-old son," Johnson says,"and if he becomes a race driver and wins a race, it'll still be second to Tim winning that race. Nothing would ever top that for me." Richmond won the next race, too, at Riverside.
Barry Dodson, Richmond's former crew chief with the Blue Max race team, watched from the California hills above. Dodson's own team had fallen out of contention early, so he jumped into his rental car to find the best view of Richmond coming through the road course's turns. He was afraid it might be his last chance. "He wouldn't just run through them like an old lady," Dodson says. "He'd sashay through there, slinging the ar into the corners. passing on the inside of Turn 8.
It was Richmond's last win.
ONE LAST SHOWDOWN
Hyde had heard the complaints around the garage. Some drivers wanted NASCAR to keep Richmond from competing, and they grew more vocal after Richmond was late to qualify at Michigan and rode out to his race car in a golf cart.
"The door latch on the trailer jammed, and we couldn't get in," Evelyn Richmond says. "He had 5 minutes to get to his car, so he took a golf cart over to get him there. He was sick in the truck, and never should have raced."
"He checked back into the Cleveland Clinic about the time Hendrick got a call from Les Richter, then NASCAR's competition director.
"Your driver doesn't look in any shape to drive.", Richter said. In September, 1987, Richmond resigned from Hendrick Motorsports. His final showdown with NASCAR came over the 1988 Busch Clash.
"You just couldn't go in and tell Timmy to get off this,"Evelyn Richmond says of her son's obsession to race again. "He had enough strength left to drive that Busch Clash. In a way, I thought, if this is what Timmy wants, he's had enough jerked out from under him, and since he only had so much time left."
He had no race car. And NASCAR had developed its first drug-testing policy, which Richmond felt was designed with him in mind. He stopped taking his AIDS medication, AZT, six weeks earlier so it wouldn't be detected. He also asked his doctor to give him a drug test to make sure he was clean. He sealed the sample in a safe deposit box in Daytona Beach Shores. He knew when he was clean when he signed NASCAR's drug-testing consent form in the Daytona garage area, so he asked to take the test right then.
Two days later, NASCAR announced Richmond was suspended indefinitely for testing positive for substances on its list of banned drugs.
"It tore him apart," says Terry Magovern, a friend in the music business whom Richmond called after getting the news. "It tore him apart, and nobody would listen to him."
'CHARACTER ASSASSINATION'
Richmond met with Richter, told him there was a mistake and demanded another test. Five days later, NASCAR announced Richmond's first test actually showed nothing more than over-the-counter cold medicine, though in large doses. The second test was clean.
"We were under a certain amount of pressure to release some sort of information as soon as we reasonably could," says Williams, the former NASCAR spokesman, of the initial suspension. "Tim Richmond wasn't going to be there (for the race). He was suspended. There had to be a reason.
"What we offered was the best information we had at the time. When we recieved further information, I got a call from (NASCAR president) Bill France Jr., who asked me to come down to his office. He had just gotten off the phone. Williams said that's when NASCAR learned what the first test actually showed (over-the-counter cold medicine).
"And a few hours later, we released that," Williams said. Dr. Forrest Tennant, NASCAR's drug testing consultant, says no scientific mistakes were made in analyzing Richmond's drug test. France won't discuss Richmond, saying through a spokesman that a court order prohibits it.
Richter says Richmond was a great talent with a great personality. Asked about NASCAR's drug test or anything else about Richmond's departure from the sport, he says, "You're getting into that no-no land."
Hendrick is still bitter about the way NASCAR handled the drug test.
"That's horrible to damage someone-to character assassinate without the facts," Hendrick says.
NASCAR lifted Richmond's suspension, but still wouldn't let him race until he turned over his medical records from the Cleveland Clinic. Richmond offered instead a letter from his doctor there stating he had not been treated from drug dependancy.
Richmond appears to bethe only driver to have taken NASCAR's drug test before or since, according to information gathered from interviews with drivers and others in racing.
Neither Richter, now NASCAR's senior vice president, nor Williams will say whether any other driver has been drug tested.
"When NASCAR announced it's drug-testing policy, they said if someone tested positive we'd announce it-mainly because the guy was going to disappear. So if somebody else took the test, it was negative," Williams said. Asked if anyone else has taken the test, Williams declined comment. Richter said, "That's internally our business. We don't say we tested so-and-so. While we're sitting here, somebody might tested."
'FANS, I MISS YOU'
Meanwhile, Richmond was front-page news and holded up in the Daytona Hilton with a personal manager and a 6-2, 230-pound body guard. "You packing a rod?," Richmond asked when Joe Semas, the bodyguard, appeared. Richmond spent most Daytona's Speed Week on the phone, calling lawyers and looking for a ride, Semas recalls. Some owners told Richmond they wanted to give him a ride, but NASCAR "didn't want him in a car." Kyle Petty asked the Wood Brothers to let Richmond drive his car in the Busch Clash; they didn't want to get involved. Even Hendrick said no. "It was just going to make it harder on him - all that controversy," Hendrick says. "I think he needed it mentally to get back in the car, but it was going to be a tough, tough situation."
On the legal front, Richmond tried hiring F. Lee Bailey but settled on Barry Slotnick, who had defended New York subway gunman Berhard Goetz. Slotnick wanted $15,000 in advance, Semas says. Richmond agreed to pay if he'd come to Daytona for a press conference. Hendrick offered his airplane and pilot to pick Slotnick up. Semas can't recall any NASCAR drivers coming to see Richmond that week. But IndyCar champion A.J. Foyt did. So did drag racer Don "The Snake" Prudhomme, movie director Hal Needham, who hired Richmond for a bit part in "Stroker Ace," and Linda Vaughn.
Richmond wanted to hire a plane to fly over the Daytona 500 with a nasty message for NASCAR. Vaughn talked him out of it. "You get more with honey than vinegar," she said. He settled on a banner that read, "Fans, I Miss You. Tim Richmond." After the race, he stayed in Daytona for Bike Week with Semas and Donnie Cooper, a friend from Ashland. "He told me if he had been a good ol'boy and went out and drank Blue Ribbon with those hillbillies, nobody would have said(anything) to him," Cooper said.
Needham saw him one last time that spring, when he and Johnny Hayes, a marketing executive at U.S. Tobacco, tried to convince him to seek help for the drug problem they thought he had. "I baited him with U.S. Tobacco, and he really thought he was coming in to talk to us about a race car ride," Needham says. "Then we dropped the bomb on him." "He sat there very politely, and said he appreciated what we all said and the fact that we thought enough of him to do that, but I just have to work this out my own way."
Richmond filed his lawsuit against NASCAR and Tennant in April 1988, seeking $20 million in punitive damages for defaming him through the drug test. NASCAR countered by demanding reams of information: Richmond's tax returns from 1980-87; the results of every test of his urine, blood or other bodily fluids since 1980; records of every visit to a doctor, psychologist or counselor since 1980; and his medical records from the Cleveland Clinic and his personal doctor in Florida.
Next, NASCAR's lawyers went after his partying past, putting Richmond's friends under oath to find out more. "They wanted me to tell them that Tim did drugs," says Magovern, among those NASCAR deposed. "That's what they were looking for - to tear up Tim Richmond." Richmond's own deposition was taken in Charlotte in October. He gave his name, address, grew confused over where he had gone to grade school and the interview was postponed. Before leaving, he signed an autograph for the court reporter's son. He withdrew the suit three weeks after U.S. District Judge James B. McMillan ordered his medical records be produced.
THE FINAL MONTHS
Shortly before he died, Richmond talked with Hendrick about making his AIDS diagnosis public - a question he struggled with to the end. "He always said maybe I should take a positive step and try to warn people," Hendrick said, "but the country really wasn't ready for it. We all prayed there would be a cure. We chased everything we could find. And if he did come forward, it might have been even worse for him." His last months were filled with pain. "He suffered," Hendrick says. "He hurt. He was ill. If he had a good day, he could see people. If he had a bad day, he couldn't see people. I don't think they had the wherewithal to keep you as comfortable as they do today, and he was really sick at times. I would go see him, and I would wait until it was a good time to go see him. If he wasn't having a good day, then I'd talk to his mom."
Richmond died as dawn broke over West Palm Beach on Aug. 13, 1989. Each January since, Jimmy Johnson turns his new desk calendar to that date and copies the words, so he won't forget: "Tim died, 5:12 a.m." Richmond was buried at Ashland County Memorial Park in Ohio following a private ceremony for the family. Charlotte Motor Speedway held a memorial service for him the next week. About 200 people attended.
Later, Evelyn and Al Richmond asked their son's doctor to announce the cause of death. "I had the thing sold to CBS," Needham says, "But his mother said she just wasn't ready to do that." Now, it's too late. "Hell, look at all the thousands of people who've got AIDS now. I couldn't sell it now. There are too many bigger stars - the Magic Johnsons that have taken AIDS over and above. Then, it was brand new. Today it isn't.
MOST IMPERFECT WAY TO DIE
Many of Richmond's friends still struggle with thoughts of his final months."I think if he would have shared what he was going through, then people would have been supportive," says Clark, the Atlanta Speedway executive. "Tim was such a vain guy, I don't think he could stand it for anybody to see him that way." Wheeler says, "Tim tended to be a perfectionist, and at the time, this was the most imperfect way to die. He did not want to put people through it. In those days, it was such a scary disease. If he had come out and said that, number one, the sport would have been put in a tight spot. " ...Owing to the conservative nature of stock car fans, he certainly would not have gotten the acceptance Magic Johnson got in the NBA."
Driver Kyle Petty talked to Richmond by phone that last year, but he and his wife, Patti, wish they had done more. "We had regrets the year before he died," Patti Petty said. "I think everyone should feel a touch of regret. They dropped the ball. They really let him down. It goes back to NASCAR did not want that. It was like at some point, his name was white-washed from the list. "...We're as guilty as the next. But if you went to see him, made a friend out of this guy, is NASCAR going to let you through inspection? They wanted it swept under the carpet at that point." Kyle Petty says, "It all boils down to AIDS. I don't care what anybody tells you. Noboby knows how to handle AIDS - especially in a sport as backward-thinking on so many things as this sport is."
NOTHING LEFT BUT MEMORIES
Richmond's parents now live in their son's Lake Norman home. His golf clubs are in the front closet, and nine pair of boots, a few hats and favorite jackets still in his bedroom closet. Many personal things have been passed on to friends. Dodson, his Blue Max crew chief, has Richmond's custom-made tuxedo. Harold Elliott, his old engine builder, a cowboy hat. Rick Hendrick saved Richmond's road-race car, along with the uniforms and few helmets and trophies Richmond's parents don't have. He hopes to build a museum someday where he can display them. "There are just so many people who want to know more," he said. So Hendrick and friends like veteran crew chief Harry Hyde hold on to what they have left of Richmond. Hyde, now 69, stores a roomful of mementos in his trailer - videotapes of each race, cases of Folgers coffee and stacks of photographs of Richmond in Victory Lane. "He wasn't going to be like you wanted," Hyde says. "He wasn't going to be like mama wanted. He wasn't going to be like Harry Hyde wanted. Or Folgers. Or Rick Hendrick. "Now if you can blame a guy for that ...."
Matt McLaughlin wrote extensively about Tim and his NASCAR career and life. The following is from the closing of those articles. For those not familiar with the story, and those that are, hopefully it will shed some light on the tragedy.
It was September 1986 when Harry Hyde, Tim’s crew chief, first noticed something was wrong, around the time Richmond won Darlington's Southern 500. "He looked awful bad, and he was taking antibiotics," Hyde says. "It looked to me like he had the flu or a cold. After Darling he got all right. I thought he was all right. But by Rockingham and the last two races, I could tell he was ... down. It was in his face and eyes." At NASCAR's December awards banquet, Wheeler thought he looked awful. "I could tell it was somthing worse than stress; he said he was exhausted," Wheeler said. "He was extremely disturbed about what he looked like." Within a week, Richmond was in the Cleveland Clinic, diagnosed with AIDS.
"I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANT"
Hendrick had never heard of AIDS before Evelyn Richmond, his mother, called to explain. "I didn't know what she was telling me," Hendrick said."It was like my first time .... I was confused. I didn't know what it actually meant - what the prognosis was. The more you found out - the more you just ... it hurt and it killed you." Richmond spend Christmas and New Years in the hospital, dwindling from 171 to 148 pounds. Rumors about drug use had dogged him since his IndyCar days. Most friends say they never saw drugs around him. Others say he never used "needle drugs."
When Richmond missed the 1987 Daytona 500 with what was reported to be double pneumonia, the rumors flew. Some said cocaine addiction. Others said AIDS. Kyle Petty didn't believe them any more than he believed Richmond had pneumonia. He thought it was cancer. Richard Petty, stock-car racing's King, felt then and now it was drugs. "There's a question in my mind about drugs - that at the time he was driving that race car, he was pumped up," Richard Petty says. "Whether he was or he wasn't, I'm always questioning that. I always will."
Richmond's return to racing in spring 1987 triggered a media frenzy. Hyde scheduled a secret practice at Darlington to see whether Richmond was physically able to come back. Word leaked out and reported showed up with stop watches. So Hyde slipped four left-side tires on to give the car an added edge.
Newspapers reported the next day Richmond was back, setting track-record speeds.
Next came an endurance test at Rockingham. Richmond tried to run 500 miles, but couldn't last more than 127. Hyde covered again, telling reporters, "Tim wanted to go on longer, but I pulled him in." Richmond was too weak to run Charlotte's Coca-Cola 600 in May, so he flew to Indianapolis for the Indy 500 instead. Linda Vaughn, racing's most famous beauty queen, got a call at her Indianapolis apartment shortly after midnight. He'd been partying and had to see her. "He fell into my arms, and his eyes rolled back, and he said, `What can I do? What can I do to make it up to you?'" says Vaughn, a longtime friend. "That's when he told me what was wrong. And I said, `Go back and kick ass and take names, because you are a racer." "..He had a deep, dark lonely side. He was like a little lost boy sometimes. He always used to sing, `I Want You to Want Me, I Want You to Love Me.' He used to drive me crazy with that song.
RETURN TO VICTORY LANE
Richmond had an edge when he returned to racing. "Testy", some said. "Not your normal Tim."
"He was never accepted when he came back," Richard Petty says. "Everyone knew he had trouble." Meaning AIDS? "Yep. It was just one of those things. Whether it was true or not, everybody said that's it, and so everybody kept their distance."
His first full-length race since the diagnosis was the Miller 500 at Pocono Raceway in June, 1987. Just before the start, Earnhardt walked over and slapped him on the back. "You ready to get it on?" Earnhardt asked. "Yeah!" Richmond said.
And when Richmond won the race, he cried so hard he couldn't see the checkered flag. Earnhardt, Kyle Petty, and Bill Elliott drove alongside to offer congratulations, and Richmond cried all the more. He made an extra victory lap to compose himself, but it didn't do any good. In Victory Lane, Richmond couldn't utter a word-just hugged his mother, whipped a towel in the air and started pouring beer everywhere. For Johnson, the team manager, there'll never be a moment like it. "I've got a 5-year-old son," Johnson says,"and if he becomes a race driver and wins a race, it'll still be second to Tim winning that race. Nothing would ever top that for me." Richmond won the next race, too, at Riverside.
Barry Dodson, Richmond's former crew chief with the Blue Max race team, watched from the California hills above. Dodson's own team had fallen out of contention early, so he jumped into his rental car to find the best view of Richmond coming through the road course's turns. He was afraid it might be his last chance. "He wouldn't just run through them like an old lady," Dodson says. "He'd sashay through there, slinging the ar into the corners. passing on the inside of Turn 8.
It was Richmond's last win.
ONE LAST SHOWDOWN
Hyde had heard the complaints around the garage. Some drivers wanted NASCAR to keep Richmond from competing, and they grew more vocal after Richmond was late to qualify at Michigan and rode out to his race car in a golf cart.
"The door latch on the trailer jammed, and we couldn't get in," Evelyn Richmond says. "He had 5 minutes to get to his car, so he took a golf cart over to get him there. He was sick in the truck, and never should have raced."
"He checked back into the Cleveland Clinic about the time Hendrick got a call from Les Richter, then NASCAR's competition director.
"Your driver doesn't look in any shape to drive.", Richter said. In September, 1987, Richmond resigned from Hendrick Motorsports. His final showdown with NASCAR came over the 1988 Busch Clash.
"You just couldn't go in and tell Timmy to get off this,"Evelyn Richmond says of her son's obsession to race again. "He had enough strength left to drive that Busch Clash. In a way, I thought, if this is what Timmy wants, he's had enough jerked out from under him, and since he only had so much time left."
He had no race car. And NASCAR had developed its first drug-testing policy, which Richmond felt was designed with him in mind. He stopped taking his AIDS medication, AZT, six weeks earlier so it wouldn't be detected. He also asked his doctor to give him a drug test to make sure he was clean. He sealed the sample in a safe deposit box in Daytona Beach Shores. He knew when he was clean when he signed NASCAR's drug-testing consent form in the Daytona garage area, so he asked to take the test right then.
Two days later, NASCAR announced Richmond was suspended indefinitely for testing positive for substances on its list of banned drugs.
"It tore him apart," says Terry Magovern, a friend in the music business whom Richmond called after getting the news. "It tore him apart, and nobody would listen to him."
'CHARACTER ASSASSINATION'
Richmond met with Richter, told him there was a mistake and demanded another test. Five days later, NASCAR announced Richmond's first test actually showed nothing more than over-the-counter cold medicine, though in large doses. The second test was clean.
"We were under a certain amount of pressure to release some sort of information as soon as we reasonably could," says Williams, the former NASCAR spokesman, of the initial suspension. "Tim Richmond wasn't going to be there (for the race). He was suspended. There had to be a reason.
"What we offered was the best information we had at the time. When we recieved further information, I got a call from (NASCAR president) Bill France Jr., who asked me to come down to his office. He had just gotten off the phone. Williams said that's when NASCAR learned what the first test actually showed (over-the-counter cold medicine).
"And a few hours later, we released that," Williams said. Dr. Forrest Tennant, NASCAR's drug testing consultant, says no scientific mistakes were made in analyzing Richmond's drug test. France won't discuss Richmond, saying through a spokesman that a court order prohibits it.
Richter says Richmond was a great talent with a great personality. Asked about NASCAR's drug test or anything else about Richmond's departure from the sport, he says, "You're getting into that no-no land."
Hendrick is still bitter about the way NASCAR handled the drug test.
"That's horrible to damage someone-to character assassinate without the facts," Hendrick says.
NASCAR lifted Richmond's suspension, but still wouldn't let him race until he turned over his medical records from the Cleveland Clinic. Richmond offered instead a letter from his doctor there stating he had not been treated from drug dependancy.
Richmond appears to bethe only driver to have taken NASCAR's drug test before or since, according to information gathered from interviews with drivers and others in racing.
Neither Richter, now NASCAR's senior vice president, nor Williams will say whether any other driver has been drug tested.
"When NASCAR announced it's drug-testing policy, they said if someone tested positive we'd announce it-mainly because the guy was going to disappear. So if somebody else took the test, it was negative," Williams said. Asked if anyone else has taken the test, Williams declined comment. Richter said, "That's internally our business. We don't say we tested so-and-so. While we're sitting here, somebody might tested."
'FANS, I MISS YOU'
Meanwhile, Richmond was front-page news and holded up in the Daytona Hilton with a personal manager and a 6-2, 230-pound body guard. "You packing a rod?," Richmond asked when Joe Semas, the bodyguard, appeared. Richmond spent most Daytona's Speed Week on the phone, calling lawyers and looking for a ride, Semas recalls. Some owners told Richmond they wanted to give him a ride, but NASCAR "didn't want him in a car." Kyle Petty asked the Wood Brothers to let Richmond drive his car in the Busch Clash; they didn't want to get involved. Even Hendrick said no. "It was just going to make it harder on him - all that controversy," Hendrick says. "I think he needed it mentally to get back in the car, but it was going to be a tough, tough situation."
On the legal front, Richmond tried hiring F. Lee Bailey but settled on Barry Slotnick, who had defended New York subway gunman Berhard Goetz. Slotnick wanted $15,000 in advance, Semas says. Richmond agreed to pay if he'd come to Daytona for a press conference. Hendrick offered his airplane and pilot to pick Slotnick up. Semas can't recall any NASCAR drivers coming to see Richmond that week. But IndyCar champion A.J. Foyt did. So did drag racer Don "The Snake" Prudhomme, movie director Hal Needham, who hired Richmond for a bit part in "Stroker Ace," and Linda Vaughn.
Richmond wanted to hire a plane to fly over the Daytona 500 with a nasty message for NASCAR. Vaughn talked him out of it. "You get more with honey than vinegar," she said. He settled on a banner that read, "Fans, I Miss You. Tim Richmond." After the race, he stayed in Daytona for Bike Week with Semas and Donnie Cooper, a friend from Ashland. "He told me if he had been a good ol'boy and went out and drank Blue Ribbon with those hillbillies, nobody would have said(anything) to him," Cooper said.
Needham saw him one last time that spring, when he and Johnny Hayes, a marketing executive at U.S. Tobacco, tried to convince him to seek help for the drug problem they thought he had. "I baited him with U.S. Tobacco, and he really thought he was coming in to talk to us about a race car ride," Needham says. "Then we dropped the bomb on him." "He sat there very politely, and said he appreciated what we all said and the fact that we thought enough of him to do that, but I just have to work this out my own way."
Richmond filed his lawsuit against NASCAR and Tennant in April 1988, seeking $20 million in punitive damages for defaming him through the drug test. NASCAR countered by demanding reams of information: Richmond's tax returns from 1980-87; the results of every test of his urine, blood or other bodily fluids since 1980; records of every visit to a doctor, psychologist or counselor since 1980; and his medical records from the Cleveland Clinic and his personal doctor in Florida.
Next, NASCAR's lawyers went after his partying past, putting Richmond's friends under oath to find out more. "They wanted me to tell them that Tim did drugs," says Magovern, among those NASCAR deposed. "That's what they were looking for - to tear up Tim Richmond." Richmond's own deposition was taken in Charlotte in October. He gave his name, address, grew confused over where he had gone to grade school and the interview was postponed. Before leaving, he signed an autograph for the court reporter's son. He withdrew the suit three weeks after U.S. District Judge James B. McMillan ordered his medical records be produced.
THE FINAL MONTHS
Shortly before he died, Richmond talked with Hendrick about making his AIDS diagnosis public - a question he struggled with to the end. "He always said maybe I should take a positive step and try to warn people," Hendrick said, "but the country really wasn't ready for it. We all prayed there would be a cure. We chased everything we could find. And if he did come forward, it might have been even worse for him." His last months were filled with pain. "He suffered," Hendrick says. "He hurt. He was ill. If he had a good day, he could see people. If he had a bad day, he couldn't see people. I don't think they had the wherewithal to keep you as comfortable as they do today, and he was really sick at times. I would go see him, and I would wait until it was a good time to go see him. If he wasn't having a good day, then I'd talk to his mom."
Richmond died as dawn broke over West Palm Beach on Aug. 13, 1989. Each January since, Jimmy Johnson turns his new desk calendar to that date and copies the words, so he won't forget: "Tim died, 5:12 a.m." Richmond was buried at Ashland County Memorial Park in Ohio following a private ceremony for the family. Charlotte Motor Speedway held a memorial service for him the next week. About 200 people attended.
Later, Evelyn and Al Richmond asked their son's doctor to announce the cause of death. "I had the thing sold to CBS," Needham says, "But his mother said she just wasn't ready to do that." Now, it's too late. "Hell, look at all the thousands of people who've got AIDS now. I couldn't sell it now. There are too many bigger stars - the Magic Johnsons that have taken AIDS over and above. Then, it was brand new. Today it isn't.
MOST IMPERFECT WAY TO DIE
Many of Richmond's friends still struggle with thoughts of his final months."I think if he would have shared what he was going through, then people would have been supportive," says Clark, the Atlanta Speedway executive. "Tim was such a vain guy, I don't think he could stand it for anybody to see him that way." Wheeler says, "Tim tended to be a perfectionist, and at the time, this was the most imperfect way to die. He did not want to put people through it. In those days, it was such a scary disease. If he had come out and said that, number one, the sport would have been put in a tight spot. " ...Owing to the conservative nature of stock car fans, he certainly would not have gotten the acceptance Magic Johnson got in the NBA."
Driver Kyle Petty talked to Richmond by phone that last year, but he and his wife, Patti, wish they had done more. "We had regrets the year before he died," Patti Petty said. "I think everyone should feel a touch of regret. They dropped the ball. They really let him down. It goes back to NASCAR did not want that. It was like at some point, his name was white-washed from the list. "...We're as guilty as the next. But if you went to see him, made a friend out of this guy, is NASCAR going to let you through inspection? They wanted it swept under the carpet at that point." Kyle Petty says, "It all boils down to AIDS. I don't care what anybody tells you. Noboby knows how to handle AIDS - especially in a sport as backward-thinking on so many things as this sport is."
NOTHING LEFT BUT MEMORIES
Richmond's parents now live in their son's Lake Norman home. His golf clubs are in the front closet, and nine pair of boots, a few hats and favorite jackets still in his bedroom closet. Many personal things have been passed on to friends. Dodson, his Blue Max crew chief, has Richmond's custom-made tuxedo. Harold Elliott, his old engine builder, a cowboy hat. Rick Hendrick saved Richmond's road-race car, along with the uniforms and few helmets and trophies Richmond's parents don't have. He hopes to build a museum someday where he can display them. "There are just so many people who want to know more," he said. So Hendrick and friends like veteran crew chief Harry Hyde hold on to what they have left of Richmond. Hyde, now 69, stores a roomful of mementos in his trailer - videotapes of each race, cases of Folgers coffee and stacks of photographs of Richmond in Victory Lane. "He wasn't going to be like you wanted," Hyde says. "He wasn't going to be like mama wanted. He wasn't going to be like Harry Hyde wanted. Or Folgers. Or Rick Hendrick. "Now if you can blame a guy for that ...."
T
TN-Ward-Fan
Guest
DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to nitpick, start a fight, or discount Tim Richmond's memory, ability, or legacy with the following statement(s).
I do not buy it. Hendrick is trying to say he had never heard of AIDS in 1986? :bs: I live in the middle of nowhere, remember? We are backward mountain people who are out of touch, remember? I was 20 years old in 1986. And I knew damn well what AIDS was. Hendrick did too. It's the party line.
Even after Tim accepted his disease, he tried to go public, and did. NASCAR was saying three months after he dies that it was the flu. Do the math people. That event capsulized for me what NASCAR was really all about. Some of my naivety died with Tim Richmond.
Nothing against HS at all here; he didn't write the article, he merely reproduced it here on this board. Anyone and everyone may disagree with me. That is your perfect right. But if it smells like **** and looks like ****, maybe it is.
I do not buy it. Hendrick is trying to say he had never heard of AIDS in 1986? :bs: I live in the middle of nowhere, remember? We are backward mountain people who are out of touch, remember? I was 20 years old in 1986. And I knew damn well what AIDS was. Hendrick did too. It's the party line.
Even after Tim accepted his disease, he tried to go public, and did. NASCAR was saying three months after he dies that it was the flu. Do the math people. That event capsulized for me what NASCAR was really all about. Some of my naivety died with Tim Richmond.
Nothing against HS at all here; he didn't write the article, he merely reproduced it here on this board. Anyone and everyone may disagree with me. That is your perfect right. But if it smells like **** and looks like ****, maybe it is.
T
thechase77
Guest
That B.S. flag is hilarious!
7
71Fan
Guest
"So Hyde slipped four left-side tires on to give the car an added edge."
Just leave it to ol Harry huh? The guy is a master.
Just leave it to ol Harry huh? The guy is a master.
G
giamarie
Guest
Rob Moroso died while driving drunk leaving a bar, not a race. Maybe he was at the bar after a race, but it was a bar in NC he was leaving (not a track) and I think he was trying to race one of his buddies... the rest is history.
Moral of story: don't drink and drive. don't drink and try to race your friends. even if you are a "professional"
Stupidity kills.
Moral of story: don't drink and drive. don't drink and try to race your friends. even if you are a "professional"
Stupidity kills.
D
DEIfan
Guest
oh its well known that Nascar and the Richmond family covered it up.......you gotta remember the times though...this was back in the 80's when Aids was just starting out
D
DEIfan
Guest
never will forget.....one morning mom woke me up and said Rob Moroso was killed in a car accident.
that hurt....i was at a few Busch races he won in Charlotte
that kid had a ton of talent
that hurt....i was at a few Busch races he won in Charlotte
that kid had a ton of talent
be9ak7ts16
Johali Lives
Totally back Wardfan in his take on the Richmond story. Thats exactly the way I remeber it. The Flu, Yeah right. NASCAR covers up stuff all the time. We all know that.
F
fan1080
Guest
It may be BS that the NASCAR denies what looks to be obvious, but I fail to see how Tim's story is BS. NASCAR did their best to cover up the fact that they teated Tim with disrespect seeming because he was quite a playboy and NASCAR didn't like the image it portrayed.
You can call NASCAR all the names you want for the BS they shoveled about Tim's story, but the fact is, he died from a disease that wasn't very well known then and NASCAR tried their best to lock away Tim because of their ignorance!
You can call NASCAR all the names you want for the BS they shoveled about Tim's story, but the fact is, he died from a disease that wasn't very well known then and NASCAR tried their best to lock away Tim because of their ignorance!