Silently, Tink closed his laptop. He had been showing me a couple of videos.
He observed me for a moment before asking, “You miss him, don’t you?”
I nodded, my eyes pooling. “Very much.”
“Does it make you sad to watch these.”
I sighed. “Yeah. He was such a force. Charming, frustrating, funny. Life was always interesting with him.”
We were in my office. I was working late so Tink and our dogs had joined me. I don’t know what brought up the subject but I was cheerfully telling a story of my dear friend, Tim Richmond.
This would have only happened to Tim.
He was running the 1980 Indy 500, years before I knew him.
Though he ran out of gas on the back stretch of the final lap, he finished ninth and was declared Rookie of the Year.
This was back in the days when the Indy 500 was THE king. Johnny Rutherford won that year. And as he came down the back stretch for his cool-down lap before his victory celebration, Tim climbed out of his stalled car.
Rutherford slowed to a stop, motioning to Tim to jump on the side pod of the car and ride with him to victory lane.
In the museum at the Indy race track, there hangs a famous portrait of that historic moment.
It is called The Rookie and The Champ.
Two years later, Tim slid away from Indy car racing and landed in a big, heavy stock car. He would become beloved as well as a puzzlement to the boys of NASCAR.
Most of them had come from dirt road, backwoods upbringings and they could not understand this flashy guy from the Midwest who came from a family of incredible wealth. To illustrate that, know this: for his 16th birthday, Tim was gifted a new Trans Am, a ski boat, and a small airplane.
He quickly earned the nickname of “Hollywood” and he loved it.
Tom Cruise’s character of Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder is based on Tim. If something had a steering wheel and could be powerful, Tim Richmond mastered it with ease. In high school, he had been the dazzling quarterback of a state championship team.
Life came easy for Tim Richmond. It was death that came hard.
How we became buddies is beyond comprehension. He was a fast-moving ladies’ man who played with high rollers and superstars.
Once, rock star Huey Lewis helicoptered into the Pocono race track to watch his pal.
When Tim Richmond needed a friend, I was his first call. Often at 2 or 3 a.m.
“Wake up,” he’d command. “I need to talk to you.”
Once, I asked him, “Should I be worried that you’re such a womanizer but you see me as a little sister?”
He tossed back his head of highlighted, shaggy hair – which he flew to New York to have cut – and laughed. “Be honored. That means I think a lot of you.”
His rollicking lifestyle cost him mightily. He was diagnosed with a highly- feared disease. AIDS.
It was a secret he was determined to keep, even from his best buddy.
He was sick, though.
And it was evident. It started with pneumonia and progressed quickly.
In the months before he died, he’d call unexpectedly to rage about an unjust God. In the early days of our friendship, I went to Bible study on Tuesday nights. Within a few minutes of returning to my apartment, he’d call. “What did you learn in Bible school tonight?”
Driving a race car came easy. Trusting God was much harder.
“If God is so good, why does He allow bad things?”
After his death, his mother called. We sobbed together. “Because of you, we will see our beloved Timmy again.” She cried harder then said, “You were the last person he called.”
Now, that’ll break a little sister’s heart.
Ronda Rich is the author of the best-selling of the new novel St.
Simons: A Stella Bankwell mystery. Please visit www.rondarich.com to sign up for her free newsletters.