Area Auto Racing conducted a poll of 23 veteran motorsports journalists a couple of years ago, asking them to name the greatest asphalt modified driver of all time. It should come as no surprise to people that by an overwhelming vote that driver was determined to be Richie Evans. In fact, the vote was so overwhelming that 20 out of 23 journalists participating in the poll Richie as their number 1 driver. He amassed a total of 573 out of a possible 575 points in the voting system.

It is my humble opinion that nobody can say that this was a mistake. 20 out of those 23 journalists were right. The only thing that was wrong with the voting was that 3 journalists considered another driver the best.

Richie Evans was asphalt modified racing.

I'm not going to go into Richie's records here, they have been covered over and over again by people far more capable to do the task than me. I can't give an impassioned speech about Richie as a person, because I did not know him personally. I can only tell you what I remember about Richie Evans, and what I think about him.

My first remembrance of Richie Evans dates to around 1968, when he was driving the orange colored number 61 coupe in all of the big races that I would attend with my father. It wasn't his reputation that got me to watch him at that time, because I really hadn't seen him race nor had I read much about him. The first thing that got my attention was the appearance of his car. Now, Richie's cars were never the epitome of good looks. They were painted a basic orange that sometimes looked flat, as it seemed to have weathered with the seasons. The frame was painted black, and the numbers on the sides and roof were black. It was my opinion that his cars looked like... well they looked like real racecars. There were no chrome bumpers or wheels, and no chrome headers or metalflake paint. Richie was prudent with his sponsor, Gene DeWitt's money. Instead of the lavish "look good" things for his racecar, he spent wisely on excellent race engines and good tires.

It didn't matter what the car looked like though, it all added up to winning.

And Richie did win, didn't he? From the 1/5-mile track in Islip, New York to the 2.5-mile super speedway of Daytona, Florida and everything in between he flat out dominated them all. Richie was as good in a 25 lap weekly feature as he was in a 300-mile race. There was nothing, and nowhere in the asphalt modified racing world that Richie did not excel at.

As I said, I first encountered Richie in 1968. It was at an All-Star League race. Running his asphalt car on the dirt he was not really competitive, but held his own. It was not the last time I would see him race. I distinctly remember him at Langhorne, one of the only tracks I know of that he failed to conquer. In his orange coupe he was always at the top of the field, only to leave for one reason or another winless. It was during this time period that I began to pay more attention to Richie, reading about him in the racing papers and watching him at the big shows.

As the face of modified racing began to change to newer style bodies, Richie changed right with them. He switched to a Pinto body, but still kept the "no frills" look of his cars. But one thing remained the same. Richie kept on building his own cars, kept on winning and kept on building his reputation. Personally, I continued to watch Richie race, seeing him at Trenton and Pocono and always holding a little spot in my heart for him to win. More often than not, Richie filled that little spot. I also continued to read about him as he dominated the asphalt modified racing circuit outside of my little world.

Richie was everywhere, and it was hard to keep up with him. He'd race in New Egypt, New Jersey on a Wednesday night, then head back upstate to New York. If there was a race down south in between, Richie would make it. For years he competed in well over 100 races each season, and won a good percentage of them. One thing about Richie still sticks in my mind. In all the races I saw him in, covering thousands of miles I cannot honestly remember seeing him in an accident. Sure, there were times when he did not finish a race, but in all my memories of him it always was a mechanical problem, not an accident that took him out. While he always raced fast and hard, I never saw him use up a racecar.

Of course that was not always the case.

The finish of the 1981 Martinsville modified race has been called by Clay Earles, the greatest race finish ever. Not the greatest modified finish, but the greatest RACE finish ever. Without going into details, Richie won the race with the bottom of his car facing the grandstands as it climbed the front stretch wall. Geoff Bodine's car was headed to the inside wall at the same time. Suffice it to say Richie trashed his car, trashed Geoff Bodine's car and won the race. The picture sequence of the finish is incredible, as are some of the details that followed. It has been said that when Riche was asked if the crash would hurt his relationship with Bodine he responded, "It can't. We don't speak anyway". Bodine was equally enamored with Evans.

Richie's dominance of the asphalt modified racing scene was so strong that he won 8 CONSECUTIVE NASCAR modified titles. In fact, for 15 straight years period the title never left Rome, New York because in the years Richie did not win it, his cross-town rival Jerry Cook did. But the streak that began in 1978, and ended in 1985 is what ingrained Richie as the best modified driver of all time. Sadly, 1985 would be Richie's last title. In 1985, at the fall modified race in Martinsville, Virginia Richie Evans was killed in a practice crash. At the time, he was so far ahead in the points race that nobody could catch him, and his 9th and final championship was awarded posthumously.

There are events in ones life that remained forever etched in their memories. The World Trade Center, the explosion of the Challenger space Shuttle and the first steps on the moon are a few of my memories that will never, ever fade. Richie Evans' death is one of those moments for us modified fans. The soul of modified racing itself had been taken from us in an instant, and a bright flame extinguished. I did not hear about it until the day after it happened through a picture and a small story in the Newark Start Ledger.

Richie Evans was dead, and all I could see was a picture of him in his crumpled car, with someone behind the wall crying out in anguish for help. I was 28 years old and had a very hard time coming to grips with his death, in much the same manner that I had trouble 7 years earlier with the death of Dick Tobias. Modified racing had, for me taken too much this time. On that day I honestly thought I'd never watch another race.

I read a lot about Richie over the next year. Read about his cars, his racing, his dedication to his sponsor and yes, his love of life. But I didn't pay much attention to modifieds for some time. It didn't help that Richie's death set off a 6-year period where some of the best and brightest asphalt modified drivers were lost to us. While their deaths were not inconsequential, only one came close, to me, to creating the void that Richie had left.

They say that time heals all wounds, and makes us forget. I truly hope that is not the case with Richie Evans. His memory needs to be maintained. His images need to be kept in the forefront of asphalt, no, of all modified racing, so that current and future fans can understand the passion that we older fans have, and where it came from. People need to know that as much as Richie won, he was never booed, never trashed and never spoken of with disdain. He averaged over 20 wins a season for virtually his entire career and the fans still loved him. Both today's drivers and today's fans would be well served to examine why, and change their ways before it's too late.

Richie Evans was a damn good racer. But more than that, he was a damn good man.

Tony Siscone, as quoted in Area Auto Racing News summed Richie up best I think. With the suddenness of Richie's death, and the unexpectedness of it all, Siscone said, "Good old Richie just did it to us again. He left under his own conditions and lived his life on his own terms." At a eulogy that Siscone wrote himself, he said that Richie WAS modified racing.

Of that, there is no argument.

Scott Pacich
Area Auto Racing News
Under the Radar
pacich711@cs.com
(570) 820-1613