Josh Richards
Josh Richards will be back in World of Outlaws Late Models competition this weekend in the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte. It will be his first time racing under the sanction of that organization since last year at this time.
Richards’ return is important in a number of ways and for a number of reasons. When he was lost to the WoO Late Models and to dirt racing in general, the sport lost more than just a driver. It also lost a superstar and a very recognizable name within the racing world.
After largely unsuccessful flirtations with NASCAR in 2011 and 2012, Richards returned to dirt racing in 2013 and experienced one of his best seasons in the sport. He scored 10 victories that year along with 32 top-5 finishes. Those performances enabled the Shinnston, West Virginia driver to earn his third career WoO Late Models title.
It appeared as if the 26-year-old racer was poised for another big season in 2014 until it was announced in January that Richards would be sidelined indefinitely with an undisclosed medical issue. That ailment was later revealed as nerve damage to the driver’s hands that had resulted from past racing injuries.
Richards returned to his duties in the Rocket Chassis house car in early October of this year at Eldora Speedway in the UMP DIRTCar Fall Nationals.
When many fans and competitors of dirt racing have thought of the Rocket Chassis company in recent years, they have thought of Josh Richards. His return will definitely bolster the efforts of the car building company owned by his father, Mark Richards. While Rocket has certainly not had a terrible season, 2014 has seen the emergence of chassis brands such as Longhorn and Club29/Black Diamond on the dirt racing scene as major players in the sport.
Josh Richards will be back behind the wheel of the Rocket Chassis house car.
Rocket still has a raw numbers advantage over its competitors, but the younger Richards served as the face of the organization as the driver of their house car. With him back behind the wheel, the company will seem whole again.
As much as Rocket may benefit from their driver’s return, the World of Outlaws sanctioning body will benefit as well as Richards provides a certain degree of star power that was lost while he was away. In his absence, Brandon Sheppard took the wheel of the famed blue #1 car for a short time and then Rick Eckert assumed the seat throughout the majority of the season.
It’s not as if those drivers aren’t stars. The problem is that they were already on the scene. Sheppard piloted the Rocket house car when Richards went off to try NASCAR and Eckert had been with the World of Outlaws for years in other rides prior to taking over in the primary Rocket car. WoO lost a major star and no new star was added to take his place.
With Richards’ return, the series will have its full compliment of talent back, and promoters of their races will be able to advertise the coming of the popular driver to their tracks.
Furthermore, the series will have a rival to put up against Darrell Lanigan in 2015. In 2013, a rivalry had begun to develop between the two drivers who, at that time, both drove Rockets and whose haulers almost always parked next to each other in the pit area. A couple of heated races on the track had seemingly led to a cooling of that relationship.
In 2014, Lanigan introduced his new Club 29 Race Car and Richards was not there in his family’s ride to oppose the new brand. It now looks as if there will be an opportunity for that rivalry to come to full fruition under the WoO sanction in 2015.
But ultimately, the biggest beneficiary from Richards’ return will be the sport of Dirt Late Model racing. There are only so many elite drivers out there, and he is one of them. Granted, he has only one crown jewel win(2011 USA Nationals at Cedar Lake) to his credit, but his is one of the cars that everyone keeps track of when it is on the speedway.
It is the sport and its fans that will benefit most from being able to add the name Richards to those of Bloomquist, Owens, Moyer, Lanigan and the few other icons of the sport that are in competition today. It’s good to have Josh Richards back.
