Fri, 25 Nov 2011, 09:35 AM What?s Left To Accomplish?

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2011 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Edmond Richardson

There are a lot of drag racers who have had good careers. A couple of national event wins, a shot at a championship and things like that would make it a good year or good career for any racer. Or, how about a racer who hits double digits in national event wins and also happens to win a national championship? Yep, that would be a good year. Or how about someone who wins multiple events over multiple years and combines that with multiple championships? You guessed it, that would be a good career, or maybe even a great career. Now, imagine if you can, someone who has been to sixty final rounds and won forty-six national events in four different classes over the past twenty years. This same racer has won four national titles, two in Stock Eliminator and two in Super Comp and he was named one of NHRA's top fifty drivers of all time (#37). A good career? Yes indeed! Hall of Fame numbers? Probably. Now take that scenario and add another national championship in the 2011 Summit Racing Series and you would have one very accomplished drag racer. In short, you would have Edmond Richardson.

Richardson at the D-2 ET Finals. Photo copyright 2011 BME Photography

When everyone saw the name Edmond Richardson on the list of qualified drivers for the 2011 Summit Racing E/T Series Championships at Pomona this month they knew that everyone else in the class may be running for second place. But then a look at the other drivers who were entered in the Sportsman class and it became apparent that nobody, not even Edmond, was going to run roughshod over this field. The other drivers included Thomas Harhart from Division 1 with his classic 1962 Impala, second generation racer Jon Siegel from D-2, the always tough and three-time Summit E/T Series competitor Jeromy Hefler, 2009 runner-up Darrell Goheen, fifteen-time national event winner Mark Faul and the Division 7 winner Ryan Mangus. "When I saw who was in that class I knew it was going to be a fight," Edmond said.

Edmond's trip to Pomona began with a weekend at the Division 3 Summit Series championship at Indianapolis. "I was representing Beech Bend Raceway. I didn't race there a lot during the season but I did qualify for the team and my boys were racing at Indy so I went." His sons, Blake and Ryan, appear to have the 'Richardson gene' because they do very well in their own right. "Yeah, they enjoy it, and I'll tell you my son, Blake, is going to be very good. A couple of years from now he could be their worst nightmare. He has that 'Scotty eye' if you know what I mean." Scotty, of course, would be Edmond's brother and Blake's uncle, so to have a gene pool like that to draw from is a good thing for any racer.

Richardson in his borrowed car.

After winning the D-3 title in Indy his sons came up to Edmond and told him that he could go to Pomona. ?I won the bracket championship in 1989 but they didn't have the Summit championship like they do now so I was pretty excited and told the boys that I'm going to go." All of this after a race in which he said that, "I just messed up less than the other guys. I didn't drive particularly well but I had some red lights and some breakouts against me and I got the job done." Now all he had to do was figure out what to race in California. "I didn't want to tow a car out there so I called Kevin Kleineweber with Hughes Performance and he hooked me up with Ryan Herem and he did the rest." And when Edmond says that Ryan "did the rest" he means it. "He got his car that he drives on the street and set it up and he even told me I could use his truck and everything. Let me tell you he went above and beyond and I can't thank him enough."

Richardson vs. Mark Faul in the Sportsman final.

Once Edmond and his wife, Sue, got to California he wanted to take some practice runs in the car, after all, he had never driven it before and this race was a very big thing for him. "I took it down to Irwindale, an eight-mile track not far from Pomona, and made two runs. After that I packed up and made it back to the Summit dinner just in time." True, but that's only part of the story. Once he got to Irwindale at 5:00 he was first in line to make a time run. "I didn't have a lot of time if I wanted to make it back for the dinner," he said. So he made the run, about a seven-second pass on the eighth-mile, and then the fun began. "It's an interesting track," he said. "After you cross the finish line it kind of narrows down and all I saw was a little opening near the net at the end of the track. I figured I must have missed the turn off so I turned around on the track. About that time they sent two cars down and I had to duck to get out of the way. A guy from the track came down and yelled at me and asked if I had even been here before. I told him no, in fact, I've never raced before I told him." He can look back on it and laugh now but I'm sure it wasn't that funny at the moment."

With practice runs done at Pomona Edmond then set about his business, and with a resume like his that business is winning races. He got by Darrell Goheen in round one when Darrell broke out, beat Ryan Mangus in the second round when by running just two-hundredths off his dial, and then beat Mark Faul on a double-breakout in the final round. "It was kind of like Indy," he added. "I didn't drive that well but still got the win. Mark Faul was really the best driver there that weekend but sometimes it's just your day." If history is any indication a lot of days over the past twenty years have been Edmond days.

Richardson and crew celebrate win.

For a guy like Edmond Richardson, who really has done it all, the impact of winning the Summit Racing Series national championship is big. "Let me tell you, what those folks at Summit do is huge. I'm spreading the word about them. They pay each racer $3,500 just to come out, and if you do the math for twenty-eight racers you'll see that's a lot of money. Plus everything else they do for you while you're there is just incredible. It's every bracket racers dream to be a part of it. I just hope my boys get to experience it someday. It was a lot of fun." High praise from one of NHRA's top drivers of all time.

Now that the season is over and the winter series races will start down South, Edmond says that he hopes to be able to repay Ryan Herem for his kindness. "I just finished a new dragster and I'm going to see if he wants to come down South and race it. It's the least I can do after all he did for me." By the way, the dragster he finished is for his son, so watch out, with all Edmond has done it's only a matter of time before one of the Richardson boys is back in California running for a national title. What's that old saying, "Like father like son!"

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