August 26, 2002

Richardson has best showing in Montreal
By Doyle Pontenteau
The Daily Courier - Kelowna

One more day in Montreal would have suited Mike Richardson just fine.

The Kelowna resident rebounded from early weekend woes and drove his Prestige Inns and Resorts Dodge to a 14th-place finish in Barber Dodge Pro Series racing Sunday. It wasn't the podium finish he hoped to score, but Richardson was still pleased.

"We'll definitely take it," the Kelowna resident said from Montreal Sunday evening.

"We had a lot of problems early on and we managed to sort through them. I wish we could have done better."

On Friday, Richardson's Dodge was down on power and brakes, which effectively ruined one day's worth of practice as he placed 22nd out of 23 in early qualifying.

That lost day proved crucial, as it was Barber Dodge's first time taking on the twisty, 2.709-mile Gilles Villineuve circuit. His pit crew restored the car Saturday, resulting in a four-second gain and a qualifying spot of 18th for Sunday's race.

"If we could take that Friday back or have another day, we could have easily taken more off our (lap) times," said the 34-year-old rookie driver. "We could have had a top-10 finish. But we'll still take the 14th considering how we started."

Richardson averaged lap times of one minute 44 seconds or 94 M.P.H. --- good, but not quite as good as A.J. Allmendinger.
Richardson, who ran a clean race Sunday, said Barber Dodge has proven quite the learning curve.

"Most of the young guys, they have no jobs and they live at home. So all they do is eat, drink and sleep racing," noted Richardson. "They even play racing video games. Whenever there's a race, they come a couple of days early to walk the track.

"Me, I'm still worrying about work, so I can't eat and breathe racing like they do. I can say it's definitely been challenging going from work then into a car that can go 140 miles per hour.

Age has also proved challenging for Richardson, one of the series' eldest drivers. But not in a negative way.

"With most of these guys being young, they're sometimes too anxious to want to win. They'll give it all they've got and they'll usually wind up spinning out somewhere. Then in order to make up lost time, they try to go that much faster. And that leads to accidents.

At Molson Indy in Vancouver last month, Julio Campos, 20, of Brazil, rear-ended Richardson and spun the Canadian out. This month, Barber Dodge gave Campos the boot for his constant erratic driving.

"A lot of drivers get too anxious and that usually means they'll get into accidents sooner or later. Me, I've let a lot of drivers through only to pass them again after they've (wiped) out. Being young, they get frustrated early and try to do everything all at once instead of working themselves into a pattern.