Jim Richards (born 2 September 1947) is a New Zealand
racing driver
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including non ...
who won numerous championships in his home country and in Australia. While now retired from professional racing, Richards continues to compete in the
Touring Car Masters series.
He was inducted into the New Zealand Motor-racing Hall of Fame in 1994 After a record number of starts and seven victories in the
Bathurst 1000
The Bathurst 1000 (known for sponsorship reasons as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a Touring car racing, touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supe ...
, and four
Australian Touring Car Championship
The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the troph ...
s, Richards was inducted into the
V8 Supercars Hall of Fame The Supercars Hall of Fame is a collection of individuals and events that recognise the efforts of past champions and prominent figures within the Supercars Championship in Australia.
A new inductee is announced annually at the championship's end o ...
in 2006 and the Australian Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2015. He is the father of racing driver
Steven Richards
Steven James Richards (born 11 July 1972) is a New Zealand-Australian racing driver, currently competing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship.
Richards, the son of seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner Jim Richards (race driver), Jim Ri ...
, and between them they have achieved 12 Bathurst 1000 wins, most recently in 2018.
Racing career (New Zealand)
Jim Richards grew up in South Auckland. He left school at 16 to start a mechanic's apprenticeship at Speedway Auto Services in Manurewa owned by Brian Yates, who was a top midget-racer in New Zealand. By then Richards had already been successful in junior go-karts in a kart made by his father. At 18 he bought his first car, on hire-purchase, a Ford Anglia 105E, a car known for mechanical reliability that he could get into racing and still drive to work.
[Naismith 1986, p.18]
He was last in his first race, at
Pukekohe
Pukekohe is a town in the Auckland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. The town is located at the southern edge of the Auckland Region, between the southern shore of the Manukau Harbour and the mouth of the Waikato River. The hills of Puke ...
, and crashed after the end of the race.
[Naismith 1986, p.18] Painted in distinctive red with yellow trim and the number '105', which became synonymous with his cars in NZ racing, he used the car for two seasons throughout the country, in race meetings, hill-climbs and rally-sprints. He then upgraded to a race-proven and more modified Anglia, his first proper racing-car.
In 1968, when working as a mechanic at Barry Pointon Motors, he bought one of the newly released 1300cc
Mark I Ford Escorts. The car was underpowered but it further allowed Richards to improve his race-craft.
[Naismith 1986, p20] In 1969 the patronage of amateur racer and fellow competitor, Jim Carney, allowed him to upgrade to his first truly competitive car, a Ford Escort with a new high-performance 1600cc BDA twin-cam engine, capable of 140 bhp. The combination of Richards as driver and mechanic Carney with the funding, and Murray Bunn with reconditioning and tuning expertise, started to produce a number of victories.
In 1970 Carney purchased the Ford Escort TC that
Mike Crabtree had raced in that year's British Touring Car Championship for the John Willment Group and this car established Richards as a top racer. Rushed straight off the boat, still in its original livery, he won with it first time out and then went on to win the class championship that year, and again in the following 1971–72 season.
[Naismith 1986, p21] By now in popular demand, he would often also race the Escort in the open-class as well, taking on and beating the V8
Mustangs
The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are descended from once-domesticate ...
,
Camaros and
Firebirds
Firebird and fire bird may refer to:
Mythical birds
* Phoenix (mythology), sacred firebird found in the mythologies of many cultures
** Fenghuang, sometimes called Chinese phoenix
* Vermilion bird, one of the four symbols of the Chinese constella ...
.
[Naismith 1986, p21] He would also enter his tow-car, a
Holden Monaro
The Holden Monaro ( ) is a car that was manufactured by General Motors' Australian division Holden. It has a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout and was produced with a two-door coupé body from 1968 to 1976 and again from 2001 to 2006 and wit ...
, in production races, as well as racing in the small class with a
Hillman Imp
The Hillman Imp is a small economy car that was made by the Rootes Group and its successor Chrysler Europe from 1963 until 1976. Revealed on 3 May 1963, after much advance publicity, it was the first British mass-produced car with the engine b ...
owned by local driver Brian Patrick. It was the latter partnership that first got the sponsorship of the NZ division of
Sidchrome – an Australian tool manufacturer – the major financial connection for the next decade.
[Naismith 1986, p25]
During this time, as in neighbouring Australia, big-engine production car racing was entering a golden age and drawing big crowds. Competitive cars included, from Holden, the
HQ Monaro, and new
Torana GTR XU-1; versus the
Ford Falcon GT-HO and
Chrysler Charger. Richards initially raced a Monaro for major Auckland car-dealer (and his new employer) Jerry Clayton. In 1971 he was regularly battling with
Robbie Francevic
Robert James Francevic (born Franičević on 18 September 1941 in Auckland, New Zealand) is a retired racing driver who featured prominently in New Zealand and Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. His biggest wins were the inaugural Wellington 5 ...
in the Team McMillan Ford Falcon GT-HO. In the next season's
Castrol
Castrol Limited is a British oil company that markets industrial and automotive lubricants, offering a wide range of oil, greases and similar products for most lubrication applications. The company was originally named CC Wakefield; the nam ...
GTX Championship the two drivers swapped teams. Richards won the 72–73 championship in the Team McMillan GT-HO, with Murray Bunn still doing the engine-preparation. In the following season, his main competition would be from
Neville Crichton in a 350 Monaro.
For the 73–74 season, Richards and Carney had arranged to buy the
John Fitzpatrick Ford Escort (with an 1800cc BDA engine) competing in the British championship to take on the big V8s. However, it was wrecked in one of the last races and the deal fell through. Instead he and Murray Bunn set up building up a
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a series of American Car, automobiles manufactured by Ford Motor Company, Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its Ford Mustang (seventh ...
at a remote farmstead out of Auckland. Sponsored by
Sidchrome in red and yellow, it was fitted with the hitherto unreliable, but powerful,
Cleveland 351 V8 engine and extra-wide rear tyres. Initially unsuccessful, after its teething troubles were resolved it was impressive enough to win Richards the 73–74 Saloon Car Championship.
[Naismith 1986, p42-44]
Changing jobs to work for Sidchrome gave Richards time during the week to work on the car during the next season. In an exciting and close 74–75 championship (including success in a Trans-Tasman series against some of Australia's best drivers) he was narrowly pipped for the championship by Paul Fahey in his ex-European works
Ford Capri
The Ford Capri is a fastback coupé built by Ford of Europe and designed by Philip T. Clark, who had been involved in the design of the Ford Mustang. It used the mechanical components from the Mk2 Ford Cortina and was intended as the European ...
Cologne V6.
[Naismith 1986, p45]
Richards was also having success in endurance racing. The traditional season opener in October was the
Benson & Hedges 500 – a 500-mile / 6-hour race run into the night for stock-standard production cars. He won the event in both 1971 and 1972 co-driving with friend and racing rival, Rod Coppins, in a Chrysler Charger.
[Naismith 1986, p32] When Coppins wanted to upgrade his choice of car for the 74–75 racing season he decided to pick up a new
Holden Torana L34 from the factory in Melbourne. Together he and Jim took it to the
1974 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 for its first race.
Racing regulations were moving closer to the Australian Group C rules at the time and marked the demise of the standard production-car racing. Driving a McMillan-Ford
Falcon XA in the 74–75 GTX season Richards was unbeatable, winning an unprecedented 17 consecutive wins. His final two races were in the 1975 winter-season co-driving Neville Crichton's Chevrolet Camaro with a win in his last race in New Zealand for some time.
From early in his racing career he had also tried rallying, as the schedules did not conflict with the track-racing season. One of the first formal racing rallies in New Zealand was the 1968 Shell Silver Fern Rally. Richards entered with Jim Carney as co-driver.
[Naismith 1986, p37-38] In the following year's inaugural Heatway Rally he drove a new
Triumph 2.5 PI with Carney's wife, Mary, as co-driver. After being one of the leaders the gearbox broke, leaving him with only top gear and finishing down the field. Recognising his talent, for the following year's Heatway,
Leyland-New Zealand offered him and Jim Carney a team
Morris Marina
The Morris Marina is a front-engined, rear-wheel-drive C-segment, small family car that was manufactured by the Morris Motors, Austin-Morris division of British Leyland from 1971 until 1980. It served to replace the Morris Minor in the Mo ...
alongside works driver
Andrew Cowan
Andrew Cowan (13 December 1936 – 15 October 2019) was a Scottish rally driver, and the founder and senior director of Mitsubishi Ralliart until his retirement on 30 November 2005.
Early years
Cowan was raised in Duns, a small town in the ...
. As expected the suspension was not strong enough and after initially running second behind Cowan he finished mid-field.
[Naismith 1986, p37-38]
In 1973, the Heatway Rally attracted several of the works teams running in the inaugural
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is an international rallying series owned and governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the oldest FIA world championship after Formula One. E ...
, although it was not itself a championship event. Ford offered him a ride as the 3rd driver in their works team alongside rising star
Hannu Mikkola
Hannu Olavi Mikkola (24 May 1942 − 25 February 2021) was a Finns, Finnish champion world rallying, rally driver. He was a seven-time winner of the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland and won the RAC Rally in Great Britain four times.
Career
Mikkola ...
and
NZ champion Mike Marshall running
Ford Escort RS1600s. Richards was running second to Mikkola going into the first mountain stage. Having never driven on ice before his car caught an icy patch in the middle of the night and slid wide off the road and rolled down a bank for 100 metres. He and co-driver Richard Halls were very lucky that they came to rest on a narrow outcrop before tumbling over a deeper gorge. They were hauled out at dawn, and with surprisingly little damage were able to resume the rally, albeit out of contention.
[Naismith 1986, p37-38] Thereafter he was consistently quicker than Mikkola, who had a comfortable race-lead and had eased off. The rally ended with a tarmac stage at
Pukekohe
Pukekohe is a town in the Auckland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. The town is located at the southern edge of the Auckland Region, between the southern shore of the Manukau Harbour and the mouth of the Waikato River. The hills of Puke ...
, where Richards was back on very familiar territory.
In the early '70s he had also had success doing guest spots on the speedway tracks. But at the end of the 1974–75 racing season, with the opposition getting more professional, he needed to make a choice on one form or motor-racing – racetrack, rallying or speedway – to concentrate on.
[Naismith 1986, p39] The decision was made to move across to the more lucrative Australian racing scene.
Racing career (Australia)
Richards first made his mark in Australia at the
1974 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 with a masterful display of wet weather driving during the race, recording lap times fifteen seconds faster than the leaders in the latter part of the event while driving a
V8 Holden LH Torana SL/R 5000 with fellow Kiwi Rod Coppins. Driving with essentially standard showroom kit, by the end, their front brakes were gone, but through attrition finished a very credible third place, five laps behind the winner
John Goss.
[Naismith 1986, p64-65] This and other wet weather drives over his career gave Richards the reputation of being a 'rainmaster', and he was called the "web-footed Kiwi",
[Naismith 1986, p52] Many Australians humorously attributed it to living in rainy New Zealand, though Richards himself believes it was more from the car control he learned early in his career doing
dirt track speedway.
In mid-1975 Richards moved to Australia. With Sidchrome-NZ ending its sponsorship, a deal was arranged with the Australian parent company to pick up the sponsorship for a tilt at the Australian season.
[Naismith 1986, p45] Arriving unannounced in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
just days before the first round at
Sandown
Sandown is a seaside resort and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, England. The neighbouring resort of Shanklin and the settlement of Lake, Isle of Wight, Lake are sited just to the south of t ...
in July, despite minimal preparation time, he won both races at the meet in pouring rain. After this sensational start, he was immediately a popular choice for race promoters to pay appearance money to bring the Kiwi Mustang to take on Australia's best. Originally intending to commute across from Auckland for the races, after two very successful months he made the decision to move to Melbourne with his wife and two young boys to pursue a professional racing career.
[Naismith 1986, p53] Through 1975 from 30 starts, he achieved 27 podiums including 13 wins.
[Naismith 1986, p55] For Bathurst he re-joined Rod Coppins in his Holden Torana, finishing 9th after gearbox issues.
[Naismith 1986, p59-61]
1976 saw the inaugural
Australian Sports Sedan Championship and many drivers upgraded their machinery. However, Richards stuck with the Sidchrome Mustang – now showing its age. Wins were less frequent, however, the late-season arrival of
Frank Gardner's all-conquering
Chevrolet Corvair
The Chevrolet Corvair is a Rear-engine design, rear-engined, Chevrolet Turbo-Air 6 engine, air-cooled compact car manufactured and marketed by Chevrolet over two generations between 1960 and 1969. A response to the Volkswagen Beetle, it was of ...
helped to limit his opposition getting too many points.
Allan Moffat
Allan George Moffat, Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 10 November 1939 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian-born Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins ...
won the series but Richards did get a big payday winning the $100 000 Marlboro sports sedan finals at
Calder Park Raceway
Calder Park Raceway is a motor racing circuit in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The complex includes a dragstrip, a road circuit with several possible configurations, and the "Thunderdome", a high-speed banked oval equipped to race either clo ...
. In October he was co-driver for
John Goss at Bathurst. He outmuscled the HDT polesitter to lead the race after the first corner, but a broken clutch soon stopped the challenge and they ended up finishing 29th. At the end of the year he was invited by
Dick Johnson to drive his Torana XU1 in the Brisbane round of the Touring Car series, getting his first Touring Car victory.
[Naismith 1986, p59-61]
With the Mustang now obsolete, and Sidchrome's sponsorship ended, Richards moved across to the
Australian Touring Car Championship
The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the troph ...
. Ford provided a
Ford Falcon
The Ford Falcon is an automobile nameplate by Ford Motor Company, Ford that applied to several vehicles worldwide.
* Ford Falcon (North America), an automobile produced by Ford from 1960 to 1970.
* Ford Falcon (Argentina), a car built by Ford ...
chassis to prepare. However, it proved difficult to get it competitive and as money dried up, the shell was successively leased mid-year to Goss and Johnson whose own cars had been wrecked in accidents. With sponsorship from Melbourne's Melford Motors, Richards debuted the Falcon in September at Sandown, and then onto October's Bathurst race as a privateer with Coppins now as his co-driver. Although fast, the engine proved fragile and unreliable. Suddenly though at the end of the season, after a change of ownership, Melford pulled its sponsorship.
[Naismith 1986, p59-61]
Then in 1978 Richards began a successful stint at the
Holden Dealer Team
The Holden Dealer Team (HDT) was Holden's semi-official racing team from 1969 until 1986 Australian Touring Car season, 1986, primarily contesting Australian Touring car racing, Touring Car events but also rallying, rallycross and National Sp ...
as
Peter Brock
Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...
's co-driver at Bathurst, netting Richards three Bathurst 1000 titles in a row. This was the first time a driver combination had done three-in-a-row at Bathurst. It changed the course of the race into a 6-hour sprint race where the co-driver now had to be as skilled and quick as the lead driver.
[Naismith 1986, p59-61] Brock later recalled that, at the time, he only knew Richards as a casual acquaintance and fellow driver, but after the
Wanneroo Park round of the
1978 Australian Touring Car Championship, the pair shared a
Ford Falcon panel van for the drive from
Perth
Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
back to
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
(which they allegedly covered in approximately 24 hours for what is normally a 2–3 day trip). Upon returning home to Melbourne, Brock suggested Richards for the job of his co-driver for that years
Hardie-Ferodo 1000 at
Bathurst. He was hired by HDT team manager John Shepherd, who knew Richards in Melbourne. Together, Brock and Richards drover the perfect, trouble-free race to win Bathurst in 1978 after starting from pole position.
The following year, in
1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
the pair had an even more dominant win, with a record-breaking six-lap margin to their nearest rivals. Just after taking over the car Richards had to drive through treacherous conditions with half the track wet and half dry.
[Naismith 1986, p64-65] He and Brock subsequently took the car back to New Zealand for the end-of-year summer series.
[Naismith 1986, p68-72] For the
1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...
race, Brock was now leader of the
Holden Dealer Team
The Holden Dealer Team (HDT) was Holden's semi-official racing team from 1969 until 1986 Australian Touring Car season, 1986, primarily contesting Australian Touring car racing, Touring Car events but also rallying, rallycross and National Sp ...
, in the first year of the new
Holden Commodore
The Holden Commodore is a series of automobiles that were sold by now-defunct Australian manufacturer Holden from 1978 until 2020. They were manufactured from 1978 to 2017 in Australia and from 1979 to 1990 in New Zealand, with production of ...
. Early on in the race, Brock made an uncharacteristic error colliding with a back-marker while lapping it. After a strong comeback drive Brock got back into the lead before handing over to Richards who then drove matching lap-times to take a hard-fought third win.
[Naismith 1986, p64-65]
''"We didn't know what was going to happen, so we just had to go flat stick. Our times were virtually the same. I actually had the fastest lap of the race until Brockie went out in his last stint and knocked me off by a tenth of a second".''
[Naismith 1986, p64-65]
The Mustang was outclassed by the end of 1976 and Richards and Bunn had planned to replace it with the new Ford Falcon. However ongoing delays meant it did not makes its debut until the start of the
1978 season at
Surfers Paradise
Surfing is a list of surface water sports, surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in Glossary of surfing, tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wind wave, wave of water, whic ...
in May.
Allan Grice
Allan Maxwell Grice (born 21 October 1942), known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000 (1986 and 1990), and as a privateer driver of ...
had bought the Corvair from Gardner who had retired. Richards and Grice battled all season, ending on equal points but Grice won the championship on a countback. The following
year
A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 Synodic day, solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) ...
mechanical unreliability meant he finished a distant second to Grice's Corvair.
[Naismith 1986, p68-73]
The late’70s marked a decline in Australasian motorsports with most drivers stretched for finance. Richards took up a Bob Jane T-Mart's franchise in Preston, Melbourne to provide a regular income, and a degree of sponsorship. It was also during this time he tried racing in
F5000 single-seaters as well as the Barclays
TR7 Procar single-marque series.
[Naismith 1986, p68-73]
In 1981, Richards bought the Falcon off
Bob Jane
Robert Frederick Jane (18 December 1929 – 28 September 2018) was an Australian race car driver and prominent entrepreneur and business tycoon. A four-time winner of the Armstrong 500, the race that became the prestigious Bathurst 1000 and a ...
but although competitive it was getting increasingly unreliable. With new GT regulations coming into force for 1982, it would be too expensive to make it eligible, so it was retired to his T-Mart's foyer while up for sale.
[Naismith 1986, p68-73]
In February 1982, Richards was hired by
Frank Gardner, team manager of the new
JPS Team BMW, as the team's lead driver to drive the
BMW 635 CSi. The team knew results under the locally developed
Group C
Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for Touring car racing, touring cars and ''Group B'' for Grand tourer, GTs.
It was designed to replace both Group 5 (motorspor ...
regulations would be very hard against the local Holdens and Fords, and never won a race from 1982 to 1984. Plans to switch to the more competitive M535is, with its far better
power-to-weight ratio
Power-to-weight ratio (PWR, also called specific power, or power-to-mass ratio) is a calculation commonly applied to engines and mobile power sources to enable the comparison of one unit or design to another. Power-to-weight ratio is a measurement ...
, were stymied because insufficient numbers had been manufactured by the company.
As Richards commented:
''"It was more or less known between Frank and I that if the car was good enough to win when I'm driving it well, then it would win. I always knew the preparation was perfect whether the car was coming tenth or first".''
''"I wasn't disappointed, sorry for myself, because I don't when I don't win races. It was the guys I felt for, because the incredible amount of work you put in is the same whether you run first or last".''
It was a positive attitude matched by the BMW motorsport management and the sponsors that was prepared to wait for the results.
[Naismith 1986, p75-81]
Meanwhile, the Sports Sedan series had been replaced by the
GT championship, running to
Group 5 Group 5 may refer to:
* Group 5 element, chemical element classification
* Group 5 (motorsport), FIA classification for cars in auto racing See also
* G5 (disambiguation)
{{Disambig ...
/IMSA GT rules. The JPS Team BMW entered a turbo-charged
318i for Richards. It was up against
Porsche 935
The Porsche 935 is a race car that was developed and manufactured by German automaker Porsche. Introduced in 1976 as the factory racing version of the Porsche 911 (930), 911 (930) Turbo and prepared for Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, ...
s,
Holden LX Torana, and an
Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV amongst others.
1982
Events
January
* January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00).
* January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. ...
was a learning curve, ending with a surprise pole position in the final race. But going into the
1983 season everything changed. The small and nimble BMW had a much better power-to-weight ratio and won the first two rounds, giving the new JPS team its first victories. But a spectacular televised crash at the start of the next round at Adelaide between Brock, Richards and Tony Hubbard (in Richards' old Falcon) put the BMW on its side and left it very badly damaged and ending Richards' championship. However, the two victories were sufficient to give him second equal in the final standings.
[Naismith 1986, p83-87]
For the
1982 Bathurst race, Richards had British veteran
David Hobbs as co-driver (Hobbs had raced with Gardner in his first Le Mans in
1962
The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War.
Events January
* January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...
, winning their class). They finished a creditable 5th, 6 laps behind winners
Peter Brock
Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...
/
Larry Perkins
Larry Clifton Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a former racing driver and V8 Supercar team owner from Australia.
Biography Early years
Growing up on a farm in Cowangie in the Mallee region of Victoria, Larry, the son of racing driver Edd ...
, and first non-V8 home. In the
1983
1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the ...
race the car was updated with new Group A engine components from Germany. Now developing 390 bhp the team was encouraged after a 2nd at the immediately preceding Castrol 400 at Sandown, behind
Allan Moffat
Allan George Moffat, Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 10 November 1939 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian-born Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins ...
's
Mazda RX-7
The Mazda RX-7 is a front mid engine, Rear-wheel drive, rear-wheel-drive, rotary engine-powered sports car, manufactured and marketed by Mazda from 1978 through 2002 across three generations, all of which incorporated the use of a compact, light ...
. Richards (co-driven by Gardner himself) qualified fourth on the grid but fuel –contamination issues immediately affected the car, retiring on the 6th lap. Conspiracy theories swirled in the papers about sabotage but nothing was proven. Reliability however meant Richards finished second in the
Endurance Championship.
[Naismith 1986, p75-81]
However, when Australian
touring car racing
Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition that uses race-prepared touring cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States.
While the cars do not move a ...
changed to the international
Group A
Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived touring cars for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles wer ...
regulations in 1985, the BMW was suddenly a frequent race winner. International rules removed any bias to any manufacturers and kept the cars far closer to production trim. The car sat lower and had far better weight distribution so it was easier on tyres than the previous Group C counterpart. Richards easily won the
1985 Australian Touring Car Championship getting on the podium in 9 of the 10 rounds, and winning 7 of them. He also won the
1985 Australian Endurance Championship with four wins out of five. However, the big one, at
Bathurst, eluded him.
That race was a triumph of the European entrants with the
Jaguar XJ-S's of
Tom Walkinshaw Racing
Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) was a motor racing team and engineering firm founded in 1976, in Kidlington, near Oxford, England, by touring car racer Tom Walkinshaw.
The company initially handled privateer work before entering works touring car ...
first and third split by the
Schnitzer Motorsport
Schnitzer Motorsport was a motorsport team based in Freilassing near Munich, Germany. From the early days of its establishment, the team mostly operated an auto racing, automobile racing squad for BMW, and had remarkable results in touring car rac ...
BMW. After leading in the early stages, because of better fuel mileage than the Jaguars, the JPS team's race was undone by oil on the track that put both team cars into the same sandtrap losing them four laps. Despite making back a lap he and up-and-coming co-driver
Tony Longhurst could only manage 4th albeit first local entry home.
[Naismith 1986, p89-95]
In recognition of his dominant season and remarkable turnaround, BMW announced Richards as their driver of the year with the 1985 BMW Achievement Award at a formal ceremony in Munich. Richards himself said ''"At Bathurst it brought it home to me. Like our car was not just a little bit quicker, but a lot quicker than the Schnitzer car and that was the best car they could muster for there. I reckon we had the best BMW that could be fielded anywhere in the world".''
[Naismith 1986, p89-95]
In
1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
** Spain and Portugal en ...
the dominance of the JPS team was overtaken as other teams developed their cars. The championship was won by fellow-Kiwi
Robbie Francevic
Robert James Francevic (born Franičević on 18 September 1941 in Auckland, New Zealand) is a retired racing driver who featured prominently in New Zealand and Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. His biggest wins were the inaugural Wellington 5 ...
in the
Volvo 240T turbo. Richards finished third in the championship with just a single victory.
The 635 CSi was replaced by the smaller capacity
BMW M3
The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M GmbH. M3 models have been produced for every generation of 3 Series since the E30 M3 was introduced in 1986.
The initial mod ...
in
1987
Events January
* January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency.
* January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade.
* January 3 – Afghan leader ...
, and Richards would again come to the fore, winning the
1987 Australian Touring Car Championship. Gardner shut down the JPS team at the end of 1987, and Richards re-joined Peter Brock's team for 1988, with the old HDT now running the BMW M3s after spending the previous 19 years racing Holdens. By 1988, however, the M3 itself had been overtaken as the car to have by the all-powerful
Ford Sierra RS500
The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...
. At the end of the year, Brock's team decided to race Sierras in 1989 while Richards was snapped up by
Fred Gibson to race for his factory-backed
Nissan
is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...
team.
Driving for Nissan, Richards won his third ATCC in
1990
Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...
driving both the
Nissan Skyline HR31 GTS-R
The is a brand of automobile originally produced by the Prince Motor Company starting in 1957, and then by Nissan after the two companies merged in 1967. After the merger, the Skyline and its larger counterpart, the Nissan Gloria, were sold in ...
and the mighty 4WD, twin-turbo
R32 GT-R, affectionately known as "Godzilla". He would repeat as champion in
1991
It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...
, finishing the ATCC ahead of his young teammate
Mark Skaife
Mark Stephen Skaife (born 3 April 1967) is an Australian former racing driver. Skaife is a five-time champion of the Supercars Championship, V8 Supercar Championship Series, including its predecessor, the Australian Touring Car Championship, a ...
. Skaife then put the GT-R on pole position at the
1991 Bathurst, before he and Richards cruised to victory in race record time, a lap ahead of the
Holden Commodore
The Holden Commodore is a series of automobiles that were sold by now-defunct Australian manufacturer Holden from 1978 until 2020. They were manufactured from 1978 to 2017 in Australia and from 1979 to 1990 in New Zealand, with production of ...
of defending race winners
Win Percy and
Allan Grice
Allan Maxwell Grice (born 21 October 1942), known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000 (1986 and 1990), and as a privateer driver of ...
.
Richards finished second to Skaife in the
1992
1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General.
* January 6
** The Republ ...
ATCC, before the pair then won their second straight
Bathurst 1000
The Bathurst 1000 (known for sponsorship reasons as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a Touring car racing, touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supe ...
in a crash-shortened race which saw Richards crash the GT-R in a downpour on lap 145. However, as there had been a separate crash on that same lap (which Richards later became a part of while trying to drive back to the pits), the red flag was shown and the race was declared. As the rules state that the results would be from the previous lap, this saw a surprised Richards and Skaife declared race winners. On a personal note, the 1992 Tooheys 1000 was also a sad occasion for Richards when his longtime friend and former JPS BMW teammate,
1967 F1 World Champion
Denny Hulme
Denis Clive Hulme (18 June 1936 – 4 October 1992) was a New Zealand racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to . Nicknamed "the Bear", Hulme won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in with Brabham, and won eight Grands Pri ...
died at the wheel of his BMW M3 on lap 32 after suffering a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
.
Richards was only informed of Hulme's passing just before he and Skaife took to the podium as winners, and as the unruly crowd below booed the pair (they wanted the second-placed Sierra of
Dick Johnson and
John Bowe declared winners as they did not like a Japanese car dominating as the GT-R did), the normally gentlemanly Richards let fly with his now famous speech:
His other Australian title wins were:
* 1985 Australian Endurance Championship in a BMW 635 CSi
* 1985 AMSCAR Series in a BMW 635 CSi
* 1986 Australian Endurance Championship in a BMW 635 CSi
* 1992 AMSCAR Series in a Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R
* 1995 Australian GT Production Car Series in a Porsche 993 RSCS
* 1996 Australian NASCAR Championship
* 1999 Australian GT Production Car Championship in a Porsche 993 RSCS
* 2000 Australian Nations Cup Championship in a Porsche 996 GT3
* 2001 Australian Nations Cup Championship in a Porsche 996 GT3
* 2002 Australian Nations Cup Championship in a Porsche 996 GT3
* 2003 Australian Carrera Cup Championship in a Porsche 996 GT3 Cup
His Bathurst wins have been:
* 1978 –
Peter Brock
Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...
/ Jim Richards (
Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback)
* 1979 – Peter Brock / Jim Richards (Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback)
* 1980 – Peter Brock / Jim Richards (
Holden VC Commodore)
* 1991 –
Mark Skaife
Mark Stephen Skaife (born 3 April 1967) is an Australian former racing driver. Skaife is a five-time champion of the Supercars Championship, V8 Supercar Championship Series, including its predecessor, the Australian Touring Car Championship, a ...
/ Jim Richards (Nissan R32 GT-R)
* 1992 – Mark Skaife / Jim Richards (Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R)
* 1998 –
Rickard Rydell
John Rickard Rydell (born 22 September 1967) is a retired Swedish racing driver. He won the 1998 British Touring Car Championship, the 2011 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, and has also been a frontrunner in the European/World Touring Car ...
/ Jim Richards (
Volvo S40
The Volvo S40 is a series of subcompact executive cars marketed and produced by the Swedish manufacturer Volvo Cars from 1995 to 2012, offered as a more mainstream alternative to the compact executive Volvo 850 and later the Volvo S60 to com ...
)
* 2002 – Mark Skaife / Jim Richards (
Holden VX Commodore)
He has also won the
Sandown 500
The Sandown 500 (commercially titled Penrite, Penrite Oil Sandown 500) is an annual endurance racing (motorsport), endurance Auto racing, motor race which is staged at the Sandown Raceway, near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from 1964. The even ...
in
1985
The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...
with
Tony Longhurst in a BMW 635 CSi, and again in
1989
1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...
with Mark Skaife in a Nissan Skyline HR31 GTS-R.
Recently, Richards has driven in the
Targa Tasmania
Targa Tasmania is a tarmac-based rally event held on the island state of Tasmania, Australia, annually since 1992. The event takes its name from the Targa Florio, a former motoring event held on the island of Sicily. The competition concept is ...
as well as numerous other tarmac rallies in the Australian Targa Championship and other tarmac rallies, driving for Porsche. Partnering Richards as a navigator has been motor racing journalist and commentator Barry Oliver. The pairing of Richards and Oliver (affectionately known as Team Grandpa in later years) have together won the Targa Tasmania a record 8 times. Richards and Oliver made their debut in Targa in 1993 in a Porsche 968 CS. His final victory saw him become only the fourth winner of the event in a two-wheel-drive car, and is the last person to do so, holding off more fancied four-wheel-drive rivals over a wet Day 5 to win his last Targa Tasmania title.
Targa Tasmania wins:
* 1996 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 993
The Porsche 911, internally type 993, is the fourth generation of the 911 model of Porsche sports car, manufactured and sold between 1994 and 1998 (model years 1995–1998 in the United States), replacing the 911, type 964. Its discontinua ...
Turbo)
* 1997 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 993
The Porsche 911, internally type 993, is the fourth generation of the 911 model of Porsche sports car, manufactured and sold between 1994 and 1998 (model years 1995–1998 in the United States), replacing the 911, type 964. Its discontinua ...
Turbo)
* 1998 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 993
The Porsche 911, internally type 993, is the fourth generation of the 911 model of Porsche sports car, manufactured and sold between 1994 and 1998 (model years 1995–1998 in the United States), replacing the 911, type 964. Its discontinua ...
Turbo)
* 2000 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 996
The Porsche 996 is the fifth generation of the Porsche 911, 911 model sports car manufactured by the German automaker Porsche from 1997 until 2006. It was replaced by the Porsche 997, 997 in 2004, but the high performance Turbo S, GT2 and GT3 va ...
Turbo)
* 2001 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 996
The Porsche 996 is the fifth generation of the Porsche 911, 911 model sports car manufactured by the German automaker Porsche from 1997 until 2006. It was replaced by the Porsche 997, 997 in 2004, but the high performance Turbo S, GT2 and GT3 va ...
Turbo)
* 2002 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 996
The Porsche 996 is the fifth generation of the Porsche 911, 911 model sports car manufactured by the German automaker Porsche from 1997 until 2006. It was replaced by the Porsche 997, 997 in 2004, but the high performance Turbo S, GT2 and GT3 va ...
Turbo)
* 2003 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 996
The Porsche 996 is the fifth generation of the Porsche 911, 911 model sports car manufactured by the German automaker Porsche from 1997 until 2006. It was replaced by the Porsche 997, 997 in 2004, but the high performance Turbo S, GT2 and GT3 va ...
Turbo)
* 2006 – Jim Richards / Barry Oliver (
Porsche 997 GT3)
Career results
Complete World Sportscar Championship results
(
key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete World Touring Car Championship results
(
key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
† Not eligible for series points
Complete Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship results
(
key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Australian Super Touring Championship results
Complete Australian Touring Car Championship results
(
key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results
Complete Bathurst 24 Hour results
Complete Bathurst 1000 results
Jim Richards won the Bathurst 1000 seven times. His first three wins were in 1978, 1979 and 1980 with
Peter Brock
Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...
who himself won the race a record nine times (Richard's seven wins puts him second all time to Brock). Richards also had three wins with
Mark Skaife
Mark Stephen Skaife (born 3 April 1967) is an Australian former racing driver. Skaife is a five-time champion of the Supercars Championship, V8 Supercar Championship Series, including its predecessor, the Australian Touring Car Championship, a ...
and once with
Swedish driver
Rickard Rydell
John Rickard Rydell (born 22 September 1967) is a retired Swedish racing driver. He won the 1998 British Touring Car Championship, the 2011 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, and has also been a frontrunner in the European/World Touring Car ...
. Of his record 36 race starts, 22 were with a factory backed team for either
Holden
Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. Founded in Adelaide, it was an automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter that sold cars under its own marque in Australia. It was ...
,
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...
,
Nissan
is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...
or
Volvo
The Volvo Group (; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of truck ...
with only victory in a BMW eluding him. He finished on the podium 13 times with seven wins, three seconds and three thirds, plus one class win.
* Super Touring
Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a auto racing, motor racing touring car category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Form ...
races
Complete Sandown Endurance results
1992 Bathurst 1000
Due to extremely heavy rain, multiple cars had crashed and were stopped on the side of the track. On lap 144 race leader Richards, whose Nissan was barely driveable due to an earlier crash, slid off the race track and came to rest behind another stopped car. He was overtaken by several cars including Ford driver Dick Johnson who became the new race leader. The race was stopped soon after on lap 145. Normally the race results would have been wound back to the last completed lap, lap 144, and made Johnson the winner. However, due to the large number of crashed and stopped cars the race was wound back an additional lap to allow more cars to place; this made Richards the race winner.
This result was unpopular with fans both because most fans were Ford or Holden supporters unhappy with an imported Nissan winning the race, and because the winning car was crashed and undriveable. Fans usually greeted the race winners with cheers but instead Richards and Skaife were booed and thrown garbage at on the podium. Skaife gave a short speech after which Richards said very few words, "I'm just really stunned for words, I can't believe the reception. I thought Australian race fans had a lot more to go than this, this is bloody disgraceful. I'll keep racing but I tell you what this is going to remain with me for a long time. You're all a pack of arseholes."
Podium MC and
Channel 7 commentator Gary Wilkinson then suggested he could cool the crowd down with a champagne bath, to which Richards replied "I wouldn't bother."
Richards later apologised for the outburst, citing the fact that he had been told just before going out onto the podium that his longtime friend and former JPS BMW teammate
Denny Hulme
Denis Clive Hulme (18 June 1936 – 4 October 1992) was a New Zealand racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to . Nicknamed "the Bear", Hulme won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in with Brabham, and won eight Grands Pri ...
had died from a heart attack which he suffered while driving in the early part of the race.
See also
*
1998 Century Batteries Three Hour Bathurst Showroom Showdown
References
External links
Jim Richards Hot Laps ExperienceJim Richards Racing HomepageVESRIX2003 Carrera Cup2007 CAMS Manual of Motor Sport
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Jim
1947 births
Supercars Championship drivers
Australian Touring Car Championship drivers
Living people
New Zealand racing drivers
Bathurst 1000 winners
World Sportscar Championship drivers
People educated at Manurewa High School
Australian Endurance Championship drivers
Garry Rogers Motorsport drivers
Porsche Carrera Cup Australia drivers