Eldora Speedway
100-lap barrier broken, Richards eyes World 100
By Kevin Kovac
UMP DIRTcar Racing
The Josh Richards car in the Eldora pits Thursday. (thesportswire.net)
Josh Richards finally has a 100-lap win under his belt. Now he’d like to add a victory in Dirt Late Model racing’s most prestigious 100-lapper to his ever-growing resume.
But even though Richards is just over one week removed from capturing his long-awaited first long-distance triumph, the pressure to break through in a crown-jewel event will remain when the 22-year-old sensation from Shinnston, W.Va., chases a $43,000 top prize this weekend in the 40th annual World 100 at Eldora Speedway. | Complete World 100 coverage
“I don’t know if you can go into the World 100 with any less pressure on yourself just because you’ve won a 100-lapper,” said Richards, whose milestone century-grind win came in the World of Outlaws Late Model Series Battle At Eastern Door on Sept. 1 at Mohawk International Raceway in Akwesasne, N.Y. “It’s the biggest race of the year and we haven’t won it yet, so you’re gonna have a lot of thoughts on your mind.
“There’s nothing like the World. The biggest thing is just getting in the (100-lapper). You need to start up front to put yourself in the best position possible, but as tough as qualifying and the heat races are, anything can happen. You need to have some luck on your side — and that’s what makes it so nerve-wracking.”
At least Richards, the defending WoO champion and national tour’s current points leader, can enter the UMP DIRTcar rules event for the first time with the confidence that yes, he can win a 100-lapper. After seven years and some frustrating near-misses — including one in the 2006 World 100, when Richards contended for victory in his second career start in the event — he got the job done.
“Everything fell into place at Mohawk,” said Richards, who arrived at Eldora on Thursday with his Mark Richards Racing Enterprises team for technical inspection. “The main thing in a 100-lap race is to get yourself in position where you can ride the laps down without killing your equipment, and that’s what we did. We were able to cruise around there at a fair pace, and then with 40 or 50 laps left we turned it up and the car really took off.”
Was Richards’s $20,000 Mohawk score a signal that he has uncovered the secret to long-distance success? He stopped short of making that type of outright declaration, but he conceded that finding the correct style and setup for 100-lappers has been an ongoing process for him and his crew.
“Everybody thinks that I drive too hard or whatever and that’s why we couldn’t win a 100-lapper,” said Richards, who launched his Dirt Late Model driving career in 2004 and won WoO's Rookie of the Year award in 2005. “Well, a lot of times I do drive hard because running with the Outlaws, you have to. As a whole, I would say the Outlaw guys probably race harder than anybody in the country. It’s just the way it is. We run on open tires and we go to a lot of tracks that have a little bit of bite in them, and we just race hard for 50 laps.
“When we go to the big races, the 100-lappers,” he added, “we have to adjust a little bit differently.”
Mark Richards, Josh’s father and car owner, succinctly summed up the journey his son took to the big-race Promised Land: “With young guys, it takes them a while to learn that in a 100-lap race you don’t have to be in a hurry. You have to take your time, and I think now that he’s won one he’s found that out.”
Josh actually learned one of his biggest lessons back in the 2006 World 100, when just one year after he became the youngest driver ever to qualify for the event, he found himself in the middle of arguably the best multi-car duel for the lead in the history of the race. He briefly nosed into the lead late in the distance before settling for a fourth-place finish, which remains his career-best in four World 100 starts.
“He probably should’ve won it in ’06,” Mark Richards said. “If he was where he is today, as far as knowing how to close the deal, he would’ve won it in ’06. But he was just a young kid then. He had only driven for two years, and he was running up front in the biggest race of the year.”
That was Josh’s best opportunity to win the World 100; his other appearances resulted in finishes of 25th (2005), 19th (2007), DNQ (2008) and sixth (2009). He feels he can recapture his ’06 magic and contend for victory again this weekend.
“I’m actually really looking forward to going back to Eldora,” said Richards, whose previous visit this season to the high-banked track resulted in a sixth-place finish in June’s 100-lap Dream XVI. “We took really good notes after the Dream, and I think if we can just get in the World (feature) we’ll be a lot better.”
A triumph in the World 100 would be an emotional moment for Richards as well as his father, who has attended the event every year since its second running in 1972.
“The World 100 is a whole different race of its own,” said Mark Richards, who nearly won the race as a car owner in 2000 when Davey Johnson finished third after losing a big lead to a late-race caution. “I’ve seen that race evolve since the second World 100 and grow into the marquee event of dirt Late Model racing. It’s not the biggest-paying, but it’s the benchmark for all the other crown jewels. It’s what set the standard.
“With the prestige of that race, the history that race has – it would mean a lot to us to win it, so we’re gonna try. If we can get in the race, maybe this will be Josh’s year.”
Josh sure hopes so. There’s no event that gets his blood flowing like the World 100.
“It’s just insane,” Josh said of the atmosphere surrounding the race. “I’ve been going to the World since 2002 when (Steve) Francis was driving for us, and still, to this day, when you go there you just get goose bumps because there’s so many cars and so many fans. It’s like, This is what Dirt Late Model racing is all about.
“We’ve run well in the race, but to win that would definitely be a career-topper.”
