A Banner Day At Watkins Glen

   Fans with an eye to the sky Sunday morning prior to the NASCAR race at Watkins Glen likely are going to see an unusual banner being towed by  plane.

   The banner's message in the air above the road course in the mountains of New York state's Southern Tier won't be an advertisement for some company or product.

   Instead, it will read, "Tim Richmond We Miss You--Your Fans."

   The banner is the idea of Mark Weaver, who lives near the Glen, along with Walt and Brenda Wombough of Neptune, N.J., and other friends, all of whom remain fans of the driver who died of AIDS on Aug. 13, 1989.

   It's a play off the banner that Richmond had towed over Daytona International Speedway in February of 1988 after NASCAR officials barred him from competing in the Daytona 500, ostensibly because of a failed drug test.

   That banner read: "Fans I Miss You--Tim Richmond."

   

    

   "We're doing this to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Tim's win at Watkins Glen on Aug. 10, 1986 when NASCAR brought its big-time series and drivers back to the track after an absence since 1965," Walt Wombough advised in an e-mail.  "It's also 17 years to the day of Tim's passing.

   "As the years have gone by it has become more and more clear what we all missed with his death...You realize just how much ahead of his time he was on many things.  Like having Hollywood friends at the track.  Riding his motorcycle to the speedway.  Staying at a motorhome in the infield on race weekends.  A lot of things that every driver has or does today can be traced back to Tim's influence.

   "He really was the first open-wheeler to make a solid, fulltime transition to stock cars, a common path over the last decade or so with the likes of Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kasey Khane and ohers.  Now we even have Formula One drivers looking to make the transition."

   Until I received Walt Wombough's e-mail, it hadn't occurred to me that this weekend's race marks 20 years since NASCAR's return to storied Watkins Glen.  Nor that it had been anywhere near two decades since Tim Richmond won there so dramatically.

   Where have the years gone!?

   Richmond, his pal and arch rival Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip and others made no secret of their deep desire to win the first race marking NASCAR going back to the legendary road course where F-1 drivers such as Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill and Ronnie Peterson had won the U.S. Grand Prix.

   Richmond was especially intent.

   However, his hopes appeared dashed when his Hendrick Motorsports team, led by the colorful crew chief Harry Hyde, worked feverishly through Sunday morning changing practically the entire inner workings of the No. 25 Chevrolet--including the engine, transmission and gears.

   The overhaul was completed so late that Richmond's pole-winning Chevy was the last car to be rolled into position on the grid in a 36-vehicle field.

   "During the last practice session on Saturday the car didn't seem to have all the power that it had earlier," explained an exuberant Richmond after his stirring victory.  "We simply weren't satisfied.

   "We didn't have time to make any changes Saturday, so we gambled and decided to switch about everything Sunday morning.  It wasn't easy for the crew and tough on me mentally.

   "A lot of nerve-wracking thoughts went through my head, like how much could I abuse the car and still race competitively."

   The gamble worked.

   Richmond, rallying from 14th to second place in 15 laps, passed Waltrip with 12 laps remaining in the 90-lap, 219-mile race and won by 1.45 seconds.  Earnhardt, Bill Elliott and Neil Bonnett followed in the top five.

   "Harry Hyde and my crew are heroes," proclaimed Richmond.  "The car held up beautifully. The brakes were fading a little at the end, and that's all that troubled me.  We took a real big chance making all those changes, but we felt we had a better chance doing that and it's good for us that we did.  After removing everything, the crew found a cracked distributor."

   Said Hyde:

   "Tim's instinct is to charge.  He doesn't know how to back off.  In practice he was running so hard he was setting the car sideways in the corners.  I told him he couldn't do that in the race and win, that the key was to run smooth.  He listened and did wonderful."

   Hyde chuckled.

   "But I had to remind him about every four or five laps."

   After the winner's ceremony and post-race media committments were taken care of, Richmond, Hyde and the crew went to the bar at the nearby, rustic Seneca Lodge and pitched one of the more memorable victory parties in NASCAR history.  In keeping with a tradition started by the U.S. Grand Prix winners, Richmond stood on the bar while crewmen splashed beer on him.  He left a tire off the winning car on the wall as a memento.

   Richmond won seven races in 1986 and was the runnerup four times.  He finished third in the point standings behind Earnhardt and Elliott, amassing purses of $973,221, fourth on the money list.  An awesome future appeared to await.

   Then, illness, first diagnosed as pneumonia, struck in December of '86.  Richmond came back to run eight races in '87, winning two.

   But after the Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan International Speedway on Aug. 16, 1987, he was gone from the circurit, never to return, finishing his NASCAR career with 13 victories in 185 starts.

   Richmond was inducted posthumously, along with Hyde, into the National Motorsports Hall Of Fame at Darlington, S.C., a couple of years ago.

   To some, however, Richmond is no hero.  At least one woman alleges that she contracted the AIDS virus from Richmond through sexual intercourse, unaware that he had the disease.

   The Womboughs, though, know Richmond only as a driver who treated his fans well and thrilled them with his ability on the track.

   That's why their banner will be flying Sunday.