page_title: Tim Richmond
section_title: NASCAR
hierarchical_section_title: Tim Richmond / Racing career / NASCAR
caption_attribution_description: The Raymond Beadle owned Old Milwaukee Pontiac of Tim Richmond finished 4th in the 1983 Van Scoy 500.
context_page_description: Timothy Lee Richmond was an American race car driver from Ashland, Ohio. He competed in IndyCar racing before transferring to NASCAR's Winston Cup Series. Richmond was one of the first drivers to change from open wheel racing to NASCAR stock cars full-time, which later became an industry trend. He won the 1980 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award and had 13 victories during eight NASCAR seasons.
  Richmond achieved his top NASCAR season in 1986 when he finished third in points. He won seven races that season, more than any other driver on the tour. When he missed the season-opening Daytona 500 in February 1987, media reported that he had pneumonia. The infection most likely resulted from his compromised immune system, which was weakened by AIDS. Despite the state of his health, Richmond competed in eight races in 1987, winning two events and one pole position before his final race in August of that year. He attempted a comeback in 1988 before NASCAR banned him for testing positive for excessive over-the-counter drugs, ibuprofen and pseudoephedrine; NASCAR later announced they gave Richmond a new test and tested negative.
context_section_description: Pocono Raceway President Joseph Mattioli III convinced Richmond to make the change to stock car racing on the NASCAR circuit. Richmond made his first NASCAR start two months after winning the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award. He debuted at the Coca-Cola 500 at Pocono on July 27, 1980, finishing 12th in a D. K. Ulrich-owned Chevrolet. That season, he competed in five events, with two DNFs (did not finish) and three 12th-place finishes. Overall, he finished the 1980 season 41st in points.
  Richmond raced for three teams in 1981. He started the season by competing in 15 events for Ulrich. He had his first career top 10 finish, taking tenth place at Bristol Motor Speedway, soon followed by a sixth at Talladega and a seventh-place finish at Texas World Speedway. After Kennie Childers hired him away from Ulrich mid-season, Richmond had top 10 finishes at Pocono and Bristol. For the final seven races of the season, he drove for Bob Rogers and had a top 10 finish at Dover International Speedway. Overall for the season, Richmond had six top 10 finishes to place 16th in season points.
  Richmond started 1982 without a ride before getting a one-race deal to drive for Mike Lovern's Fast Company Limited, Billie Harvey, at the Rockingham track. Richmond completed 112 laps of the 492-lap event to finish 31st, retiring from the race with engine problems. For the following event, Richmond was hired to drive J.D. Stacy's No. 2 car. In his first race for the team, Richmond earned his first career top 5 finish when he placed fifth at Darlington Raceway. Returning to Pocono, he finished second, before winning his first race on the road course at Riverside, California the following week. Later that season, he earned his first pole position at Bristol. The tour returned to Riverside for the final race of the season where Richmond won his second race, sweeping both events at the track. Benny Parsons said that "watching Richmond go through the Esses was unbelievable". For the season, Richmond had twelve top 10s, two wins, and one pole to finish 26th in points.
  In 1983, Richmond began racing for Raymond Beadle whom he had known before he started racing. He returned to the three-cornered Pocono racetrack, earning his first oval victory. During the season, he accumulated four pole positions (Darlington, Pocono, Charlotte, and Atlanta), one win (Pocono), and fifteen top 10s on his way to finishing tenth in season points. He made his first appearance in a NASCAR Busch Series car, but did not finish any of the three races he entered that season.
  Esquire magazine named Richmond as one of "the best of the new generation" in 1984. That year he had one win at North Wilkesboro Speedway and second-place finishes at Dover, Darlington and Riverside. Richmond finished the 1984 season 12th in points, with 11 finishes in the top 10 and in six in the top 5. In 1985, the final season that Richmond competed for Beadle, his best finish was a second-place run at Bristol. He ended the season 11th in points with 13 Top 10s in 28 races. In the Busch Series, he qualified at the pole position in the two races he entered, and won the Charlotte race.
  Richmond joined Hendrick Motorsports in 1986, where he teamed up with veteran crew chief Harry Hyde. It took the team until the middle of the season to gel. Richmond had suffered a 64-race winless streak that was finally broken at the Van Scoy Diamond Mine 500 at Pocono in June 1986. After two straight second-place finishes at Charlotte and Riverside, Richmond started the Pocono event in third place inside the second row. That race saw a caution for rain with five laps left before the halfway point. NASCAR wanted the cars to get to the halfway point to make the race official, so the sanctioning body had the drivers slowly circle the track. It took the drivers 26 minutes to complete the laps, and the rain was so heavy that some drivers had to look out their side windows because they could not see out their windshields. Two hours later, the track had dried and the race resumed with Richmond in third. After Richmond's car wa
caption: Richmond's car in 1983
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