Richards Gets Victory At Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway
SHINNSTON, WV – A visit to Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway on Sunday night might have helped Josh Richards get back on track.
After capping a sometimes frustrating four-race ‘Great Northern Tour’ with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series by finishing a quiet ninth in Saturday night’s inaugural ‘Firecracker 100’ at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., Josh invaded the PPMS ‘Monster Half-Mile’ and won Sunday’s unsanctioned ‘Red Miley Memorial Penn National 53.’
Josh’s Mark Richards Racing-owned Seubert Calf Ranches/Ace Metal Works/TSR-Tony Stewart Racing/Petroff Towing/MCB Motorsports Rocket Chassis No. 1 was the cream of the crop at PPMS. He won a heat race, then passed fellow WoO LMS regular Chub Frank for the lead on lap nine and held off Frank’s late challenges to preserve the top spot.
The victory – Josh’s first-ever away from the WoO LMS – came at the western Pennsylvania track where he ran one of the first races of his dirt Late Model career in 2004. He appeared headed to victory in that event until a flat tire dive-bombed his effort, so finally bagging a checkered flag at the track just over three years later put a smile on the face of the 19-year-old sensation.
Josh’s satisfying triumph at PPMS came after he experienced an up-and-down ‘Great Northern Tour’ with the Outlaws. He started the swing off in strong fashion with a third-place finish on June 20 at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway – he ran second for much of the 40-lap distance before losing a position because his car got tight – and seemingly carried that momentum into the June 23 event at Quebec’s Autodrome Drummond, leading the first 20 laps of the 50-lap A-Main.
But then Josh’s racing fortunes took a turn for the worse. A rear suspension problem in the first-ever WoO LMS even held in Canada caused him to fall to fourth before heading to the pits on lap 27 for repairs, costing him laps and leaving him with a 14th-place finish. He followed that disappointment with steady-but-unspectacular outings on June 24 at Cayuga County Fair Speedway in Weedsport, N.Y. (10th in the 50-lapper) and June 30 at Lernerville Speedway (ninth in the Firecracker 100).
Josh began the $140,000 Firecracker 100 weekend with a flourish on Friday night, nipping Steve Francis in a photo-finish to win the third heat race. He proceeded to draw the fourth starting spot for the $30,000-to-win A-Main, but never got a grip on the four-tenths-mile oval’s slick surface and slipped to a ninth-place finish.
“That was an ice cube out there,” Josh said of Lernerville’s slick condition. “I’ve never been on anything like that, and we tried some stuff with the car and it didn’t work out.
“I was just holding on. The best I could do was ninth. I wish it would’ve been better, but we’ll take a ninth over a DNF.”