I am watching the 1989 Miller High Life 400 from Michigan.. Ken Schrader is on the pole with the #25 Folgers car.. No mention at all of Tim Richmond.. I was only a kid back in 1988-1989, but was there any talk about what happened to Richmond from the time of his Daytona drug test in 1988 thru his death in 1989?
It just seems like he was totally forgotten during this time period..
I recall seeing a show whereby Tim was on the decline in a hospital and as an intro to pump him up some, I believe it was before one of the Pocono races, Dr Punch asked to have an intro showing Tim winning at Pocono some time earlier......it gave the people working around him some idea of what he was......but that was about all I recall on the positive side, the negative side seems to have been well documented......if you get the chance search out the 30 for 30 ESPNfilms piece on Tim.......it pretty much told the story fairly evenlyOriginally Posted by Chris Paff
Katharine's Legge is in the gravel!--Jenks
__________________________________________________ ____________________
12-7-1941 Never, Never Forget 9-11-2001
I'm trying to remember...the documentary brought back a lot of memories. But it really seemed as if he fell off the face of the earth. Every now and then you might hear a blurb about him.
It's been told that NASCAR didn't want him around when they found out he had HIV. In the 1980s, AIDS still would cast a highly negative reaction from competitors, media, fans, and protestors from all walks of life coming out of the woodwork. Some people still thought it was the "gay man's cancer," and there was a lot of fear of the disease spreading (they didn't know much about the facts about AIDS yet). NASCAR was still a old fashioned, very conservative, good ole boys network.
They didn't want that circus, and the negative attention if it came out he had AIDS. It seems they threw him under the bus...accused him of testing positive for banned substances, and the garage area basically shunned him. It didn't matter though, because he went downhill quick. He wouldn't have been able to get back in the car anyway. Plus, it seems he was in denial about the whole thing, so he wouldn't let the news get out he had AIDS.
When he was on his death bed, there was a report he had a "motorcycle accident." To the very end, his diagnosis wasn't made public. Not until after he was dead.
I seem to recall Nuber would put out something on Speedweek very occasionally, when Tim died that was THE story of the show and Speedweek put up a story worthy of a champion race driver........but they were still a bit in the dark, except I have a feeling of Dr Punch, about what caused his death as I recall them saying "many will speculate about Tim's death".......it's pretty much the reason I stopped following Nascar, it was no way to treat anyone in public and their spokesman was Chip Williams, search him out and see who was talking for them......Tim was caught between a rock and hard place while his hand was being forced in court .......a sad time with no winners
I didn't hear or read a thing about him between his contentious departure from Daytona in Feb. '88 to the fabricated "motorcycle accident" news blurb a couple weeks before his death. According to his sister in the 30 for 30 doc he did little in that year and a half but waste away in his family's Fla. condo.
Friends of mine who attended Michigan every year told me about how they saw Richmond there in Aug. '87, being pit-carted to the qualifying line, late, without his shoes on yet, looking barely conscous. It was a disturbing scene. I wasn't a fan, and I don't think he handled his situation with the most maturity, to say the least, but he deserved a better fate, on many levels.
Happiness is Friday morning, Road America, first session, rolling down pit lane, course is clear, we are green!
I was just a dumb 21, 22, 23 year old at the time
But I was All In with NASCAR back then.
There was no internet of course but I read anything and everything NASCAR and would religiously watch the few racing news shows that were on cable at the time.
One was called Inside Winston Cup. It was hosted by Ned Jarrett and Steve Byrnes and was aired on TNN on Sunday nights, and Dave Despain hosted some show called Motorweek Illustrated
Id say i was as well informed as one could be in 1986, 87, 88
Just going from memory all I can remember is that the company line was that he was sick and no one knew or would admit that they knew what was wrong.
IIRC, he won at Pocono then not too much later he just went away and no one saw him again
Then he was dead.
He screwed up of course but he wasnt exactly welcomed back with open arms
He wanted to race as long as he could and they put up as many roadblocks as they could to keep him off the track.
Cant really blame them i guess
He wasnt exactly the picture of health by then Im sure
No one knew what was wrong and he was trying to hide what was wrong.
Alot of mistakes were made but no one knew it at the time
Hard to believe that was 1/4 of a century ago
Faster than a bullet from a gun
He is faster than everyone
Quicker than the blinking of an eye
Like a flash you could miss him going by
No one knows quite how he does it but it's true they say
He's the master of going faster. -George Harrison
It wasn't uncommon for people to hide AIDS until right before they died, no matter what people saw happening. Look at Freddie Mercury. We all know how nasty the Brit tabloids can be; they had been dogging him about it for years, and nothing was said publicly until literally right before he died.
As I remember it, Tim Richmond got sick, went into the hospital for some treatment, came back and won a race or two, and then the whole "drug test" thing happened, and NASCAR essentially blackballed him-but, as has been pointed out, nobody knew much of anything about the disease back then. Doesn't excuse it, and it's deplorable in retrospect, but it's kind of understandable given what most people thought they knew at the time. Still, and I'm not referring to NASCAR per se, but there's no doubt that such ignorance and stigma caused a lot of people to hide until it was too late, costing them their lives....it makes me sad, and it makes me angry.
It's amazing that attitudes about AIDS turned around as quickly as they did a few years later. It's sad, too: if Tim or Freddie had contracted HIV just a few years later, they might still be with us.
Still, what a terrible disease.
Freddie Mercury with Queen at Live Aid, 1985:
Freddie Mercury's last Queen music video, "These Are The Days of Our Lives," 1991:
"Only a fool fights in a burning house."-Kang
"If you listen to fools....The Maaahhhhb Ruuuules....."-Ronnie James Dio
As someone who was connected with a track that was running a NASCAR series at the time, I can tell you from personal experience that they were VERY concerned about any reference to Tim Richmond.
How did Richmond contract AIDS?
By hooking up with anything in a skirt.
I'll see YOU at the races!
Yep.
There's a skit from the Chapelle Show where a muppet like character has a venereal disease. Another puppet asks "Dangle" how he got the disease.
"from &$#%ing" was the answer.
Same here.
Tim liked prostitutes
I think it was Magic Johnson that spearheaded the turn in the tide in public opinion. There's another one of those 30-For-30 style documentaries that came out about him...and it gives a good snapshot about what AIDS was like at the time, and how far society has come.
In the early to mid 80s, there would be massive protests in some towns when the word would come out that a person had AIDS, especially if it was a kid in the school. You'd get protesters (of the ilk that resemble the Fred Phelps folks of today) picketing the streets and demanding they ship him off to Antarctica. Parents would pull their kids out of school, and it would make national news. Some people also felt AIDS was a "punishment disease" and still primarily associated it with gay men.
No doubt NASCAR didn't want to be part of any of that.
I seem to recall a few of them died after he died.
Same COD
I was there that day as well. We were seated up in the grandstands, but I still remember him wheeling up on a golf cart, appearing disoriented and looking for his race car. It was strange, but then again we just chalked it up to Tim being Tim.
The thing that really got Timmy sideways first with many of his peers was his hedonistic drug usage - it was much more evident to those he worked among than what is merely hinted at in this thread. The AIDS thing was just the cap to the bottle so many were already tired of drinking from. The tragedy of Tim Richmond sprouts from the facts the dude had about as much natural talent behind the wheel as God gives anyone but he had a bigger desire to waste so much of it.
I took this of Tim in 1981 at Indy. Is that Gary Lee interviewing him?
"Indycars should be beasts." - Gil de Ferran
@bigmo500
Got any proof of his drug usage?
Hal Needham was interviewed for the 30 for 30 segment and IIRC, was quoted as saying "If he used drugs, he would've felt comfortable around me because I'm from Hollywood, but there was nothing."
O-Qua Tangin Wann
Qua Omsa Lagee Wann
Here is a photo I took of Tim in 1987 on race day at Indianapolis. I remember a lot of people were happy to see him.
Here's Tim driving one of the strangest race cars ever built, the outlawed-before-it-ever-raced "3-to-1" Supermodified (3 wheels on the right, 1 on the left, fuel-injected Can Am ZL-1 big block power) built by Ken Reece:
Creativity outlawed.......it should have been given at least one chance before it was disallowed, as I recall the owner chopped it up in little pieces so we'll never really know if it was all it was hyped up to be.....but the idea was so outside the box why not let is live for one day? And if Tim happened to drive it that one time, all the better in hindsight.Here's Tim driving one of the strangest race cars ever built, the outlawed-before-it-ever-raced "3-to-1" Supermodified (3 wheels on the right, 1 on the left, fuel-injected Can Am ZL-1 big block power) built by Ken Reece:
Of course I do. PM me three of your credit card #s, their respective PIN #s, your SS #, and you can have all the "proof" you need for just $1,599.95 each.
I can personally attest that Tim drank a few beers now and then.(pre NASCAR)
Have a very blessed day!
Translation: I don't have proof.
Some wise one once said that there is no such thing as "proof" - there is only evidence.
Mine would be empirical.
Okay, what evidence do you have to disprove Hal Needham from the 30 for 30 special.
I do not know Hal Needham. Do you?
Personally? No. Would I trust what he said? Yes.
That's swell.
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