Tim Richmond could have been Curtis Turner's running buddy

We like to run excerpts from books about racing and the often extremely colorful people involved in it on ThatsRacin.com. It's among our hopes that you enjoy them, too.

I have nothing but admiration for folks who can write books. We of the short attention span can only imagine what it's like to stay on task for so long. Heck, it's obviously tough for me to get through 18 holes of golf - or goof, even flog, which if golf spelled bass-ackwards - sometimes.

What the book thing makes even more amazing from where I sit is that these same people have day jobs, too. They juggle all those responsibilities and write books, too.

Dang.

Or as our good friend Gomer Pyle used to put is: Shazam!

Another good friend, and a real one at that, David Poole, has a new book out about Tim Richmond.

http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/10898343.htm

And while this isn't a book review by any stretch of even a vivid imagination, I think the book rocks. Like early Stones.

I never met Tim Richmond, but I've heard a ton of stories. But far fewer than Poole has, which I suspect would be far more than he had room for in the book. But I admired what I knew of Richmond's approach to racing and life. Nah. I was practically in awe of it.

To me, Richmond would have been a perfect fit in Curtis Turner and Smokey Yunick's day. I was but a pup then and guys like Yunick and Turner - and many others of the day - were so much larger than life that it's hard to even fathom.

Rob Edelstein has written a book about Turner, which I hope we'll soon get to in this space and on the site.

I've gotta believe had Turner and Richmond been contemporaries that Tim would have been among the last guys to leave Curtis' four- or five-day, uh, parties. Sorry. "Party" doesn't do justice to what I read of Turner's extravaganzas.

Richmond, who very obviously left us way too soon, didn't even start racing until he was 30 or so, which I take as yet another sign of hope for those of us still hoping to be late bloomers. He raced at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the 500, then set the woods ablaze when he turned his attention to stock cars.

In my mind it's but yet another credit to Rick Hendrick that he recognized Richmond's talent and tried to harness it. Which is not to say it could have been easy given Hendrick's upbringing in church-going, politically conservative North Carolina.

Consider this from Poole's book:

"Tim shows up about a half-hour late. He walks in and he's got on this big old fur coat and after-ski boots with fur around the tops, ugly looking things. He takes the fur coat off and throws it across the table. Under that, he had on a T-shirt that said something like "Eat More Posse" and a pair of jogging shorts that were cut up the side. Tim goes and sits at the head of the table and throws his leg up on the table. Everything just fell out. Rick and Harry and I were saying, 'Oh my God!'"

Obviously, Tim Richmond took Rick Hendrick, his then-general manager Jimmy Johnson and Harry Hyde for a heckuva ride. I think you'll enjoy the ride Poole affords with this un, too.