For ESPN's 30 For 30 documentary series, director Rory Karpf chose one of NASCAR racing's most compelling stories -- the life and death of flamboyant star Tim Richmond.
The film Tim Richmond: To the Limit, which debuts at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday on ESPN, celebrates the magnetism of Richmond's personality and the natural driving ability that won the admiration of seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt.
At the core of the hour-long film, however, is an honest view of Richmond's death in 1989 from AIDS, set against the backdrop of an era when hysteria surrounded the disease.
"We were just ignorant," says Kyle Petty, one of many voices in the film.
Those unfamiliar with Richmond's life and career will get a real sense of the driver's star power, as well as his full-speed, hard-partying lifestyle. Karpf weaves archival footage of racing action and contemporaneous interviews with recent comments from those who knew him -- among them Richard and Kyle Petty, Darrell Waltrip, H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler and Richmond's sister Sandy Welsh, whose cooperation was essential to the success of the project.
Driving for owner Rick Hendrick and crew chief Harry Hyde in 1986, Richmond picked up seven of his 13 career victories and finished third in the Winston Cup Series standings. The characters of driver Cole Trickle and crew chief Harry Hogge, played by Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall, respectively, were loosely based on Richmond and Hyde.
Richmond began to feel ill at the postseason awards banquet in New York and missed the start of the 1987 season, having been hospitalized with what was described as double pneumonia. Richmond returned to win two races in his final eight starts in 1987, but that closed the book on his career.
Richmond planned to compete in the 1988 Busch Clash at Daytona but failed a drug test NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. later admitted was flawed. (Karpf's film includes footage of that admission from a 2006 interview.)
Barred from NASCAR racing, Richmond ultimately became reclusive. That he had contracted AIDS was not revealed until after his death in 1989. He was 34.
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