As the racing world mourns the untimely passing of Scotty Richardson, the only topic I can think to dedicate this column to is the incredible legacy he leaves on our sport. It’s unparalleled. Let’s start with the tangible:
On track success
Scotty Richardson has long been regarded as one of, if not THE best sportsman driver to ever strap into a race car. His accomplishments alone are incredible, and I think they’re best appreciated through the lens of versatility.
It doesn’t matter what segment of sportsman racing we focus on: not only did Scotty compete in every discipline, at some point in his near 40-year career, he won the pinnacle event in essentially every form of racing. The NHRA Lucas Oil Series? He won 5 world championships (and lost two more on tie-breakers). Scotty claimed 39 national event wins, including multiple triumphs in all 6 traditional sportsman categories (Comp, Super Stock, Stock, Super Comp, Super Gas, and Super Street). What about Indy? Scotty won the “Big Go” 3 different times, in 3 different categories (and nearly double at the Big Go in 1996 when he won Stock and took runner-up honors in Super Comp).
Like the fast brackets? Scotty claimed an IHRA World Championship in Top Dragster as well.
What about quarter-mile bracket racing? For years, the most prestigious quarter-mile race was the Moroso 5-Day championships. Scotty won the 5-Day points title x times.
Prefer 1/8th mile bracket racing? Scotty dominated the big dollar scene for more than two decades, claiming titles in seemingly every one of the biggest series and most prestigious events in the country. He’s the only driver to date to appear in FOUR “Million Dollar Race” finals.
But could he do it in a door car? Two of those “Million” finals were in a dragster, two were in a door car (including his victory at the 2020 Spring Fling Million).
Prefer footbrake competition? The most prestigious event on the Footbrake calendar is the World Footbrake Challenge. The first two years of the World Footbrake Challenge featured a massive $50,000-to-win main event purse. The winner in year one? Scotty Richardson. The winner in year two? Scotty Richardson. Long story short: if it involves a christmas tree and a breakout rule, Scotty has won it.
Where did his talent come from? No different than Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or other generational superstars, there were elements of genetics, timing, dedication and hard work at play. Scotty grew up in a racing family, with competition as a way of life. Where his steely resolve and insatiable drive to be the best came from exactly is difficult to pinpoint. In the weeks since his passing, I’ve told a lot of Scotty Richardson stories. One of my favorites comes from a secondhand account.
A good friend of mine, Roger Martin used to race regularly with Scotty’s father Eddie, and then ultimately Scotty and his older brother Edmond. He once told of a time when Scotty was about 10 years old, crewing for his father (and perhaps for Edmond as well). This was back in a time when racers were responsible for their own track “prep.” In that day, the sticky stuff was typically distributed on a per-car basis, by a crew member dispensing the contents of a squirt bottle in front of each tire during the burnout process. On this particular day, Roger’s typical crew was unable to join him at the track. He spotted a young Scotty Richardson in the staging lanes, returning to the pits with his bottle of glue from helping his father on the starting line. Roger asked, “Scotty, would you stay up here with me and give me a shot of glue when I pull out on the track?”
The response he received from 10-year-old Scotty Richardson is priceless. He said that Scotty cocked his head, looked up at him like he’d lost his mind, and replied, “Do you not understand that we’re here to whip you?”
Needless to say, the competitive desire began at an early age!
Mentorship:
I tell that story in part because it’s telling of just how much Scotty’s outlook evolved as he matured. Aside from his own success, a big part of his legacy is how much he advanced the sport by helping, and specifically teaching others. Over the course of the past two decades, he worked with thousands of racers through his popular “Schooled by Scotty” on-track schools and online programs – sharing his knowledge of the sport with the masses, cultivating relationships with racers throughout the continent, and advancing the cumulative sportsman racing IQ exponentially in the process.
Beyond his success on the track, and the impact from his commitment to teaching others the nuances of the sport he loved, I think Scotty’s legacy is also defined by an element that’s harder to quantify. A little personal history, in an attempt to illustrate Scotty’s immense…
Impact:
My father took advantage of a job opportunity in 1989 that relocated our family from Southern California to North Texas. I was eight years old. A year prior, then 17-year-old Scotty Richardson, already a terror on the local bracket scene, had claimed his first NHRA national event victory in Houston. Our new home was 3 miles from Texas Raceway, the little 1/8th mile track that Scotty and his equally successful older brother Edmond grew up at and at that time still called home.
It didn’t take me long to latch onto Scotty’s shooting star. I idolized him. In my first year of Jr. Dragster competition I vividly remember coming back from a run, only to have Scotty Richardson, who was watching from the finish line, explain to me what I did right, or wrong, or could have done better. Looking back, how incredibly fortunate was I to grow up where I did during the era that I did?! Texas Raceway, literally a bicycle ride from my childhood home, was a mecca of sportsman drag racing during that time period; and the catalysts for that were Scotty and Edmond Richardson.
Watching their success (domination is probably the more appropriate term) opened my eyes to what was possible. Like all the other kids at Texas Raceway, and thousands of young racers across the country, I looked at racing through the lens of my father. Racing was an incredibly addictive hobby. Texas Raceway was the place he went on Saturday afternoon to leave the worries of everyday life behind. It was the escape that he looked forward to all week. So it comes as no surprise that it was the 12 hours that I looked forward to all week growing up as well. Our perspective was simple: work all week so you can go racing on Saturday, and repeat.
It’s impossible to think about Scotty’s legacy without thinking about Edmond. While they each enjoyed plenty of individual success, it’s hard to argue that they weren’t at their best together. They had a pioneering approach to the business of racing – from securing corporate backing, to partnering with Bob Frey to produce instructional videos, to selling merchandise and performance parts, and more. At least in my mind, that was mostly Edmond’s influence: it was his business sense, along with their shared determination and work ethic that made it seem possible to an entire generation of racers like me to dare to dream of building a life – in some form or fashion – around this sport that we love. If Edmond made it possible, it was Scotty’s personality – that easy laugh and goofy grin – that made it look like so much fun!
Together, they moved the goalpost for countless racing enthusiasts: they changed the game and paved the way. The life I’ve created for myself would not have been possible had they not blazed the trail; and I think hundreds, if not thousands of racers in the pits and the industry surrounding it could say the same.
Rest easy Scotty, your legacy here in this sport is unmatched and your impact will be felt for years and years to come.
