Mansfield Motorsports Park to host Tim Richmond tribute June 20

MANSFIELD, Ohio – Tim Richmond, a native of Ashland, Ohio, is often referred to as one of the most talented race car drivers who set foot on a track. From go-carts to NASCAR, he could drive anything!

Tim Richmond’s path to stardom began on Ohio short tracks. Tim Richmond was blessed with gifts that made him destined for greatness on and off the race track. With the support of a loving family, father – Al, mother – Evelyn and sister – Sondra, it was not long before that greatness was revealed.

He demonstrated he had star quality from an early age. He was a star athlete at his high school, Miami Military Academy. He set a conference record in high hurdles and was such an outstanding football player that his high school retired his jersey and named him Athlete of the Year in 1970.

Tim would have turned 54 on June 7. As a youth, Richmond had an interest in things that went fast starting with go-karts, as a boy and graduated to cars and airplanes as a teen. His parents gave him a Pontiac Trans Am for his 16th birthday.

Richmond started his brief but brilliant racing career in 1976 when he turned some laps in a Sprint Car at Lakeville Speedway in Lakeville, Ohio. By 1980 he was winning rookie of the year honors in the Indianapolis 500. After moving to NASCAR, he won 13 races and had 42 top-five finishes and 78 top 10s in just 185 career Sprint Cup starts.

Richmond also had an ARCA victory on his resume. He won the ARCA 200 at Daytona International Speedway in February of 1981 in his first career start in that series.

The June 20 race will be ARCA’s first race at the half-mile Mansfield track.

“Tim Richmond won the 1981 ARCA 200 at Daytona, and he won in supermodifieds at our Toledo Speedway track,” said ARCA President Ron Drager. “We’re proud to have played a role in the development of Tim’s amazing racing career, and we look forward to helping make the inaugural Tim Richmond Memorial ARCA RE/MAX 200 at Mansfield a success.”

It’s fitting that the Tim Richmond Inaugural – the brainchild of co-promoter Joe Mattioli, III – is being held. It was Joe, son of Pocono Raceway’s owners Drs. Rose and Joe Mattioli, who brokered the deal that brought Richmond to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing, and the deal with ARCA and MMP.