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Tim Richmond raced in the 1980s in NASCAR, and he was hellfire. Really, the only racer I think actually matched Dale Earnhardt in his era for pure driving talent. Handsome, stylish Ohio via Fort Lauderdale kid. Easy to like and, like I said, hell on wheels. Fast. Car control through the roof. That was Richmond.

(For modern comparisons, Poolie among others compared Kyle Busch to Tim Richmond. You get the idea. But also make him naturally cool, handsome and charming.)

Richmond came in through Indy cars having been ROTY at the Indianapolis 500. After a successful stint driving for Raymond Beadle, he was hired by Rick Hendrick to drive for his new #25 Chevy sponsored by Folgers. The car was a second team car for Hendrick, which was really kind of new thinking at the time.

I can’t think of Pocono without thinking of Richmond. Thing was, he was a killer on road courses, and Pocono, with its tirfecta of weird, flat turns and road course traits, really had a thing for him. He swept both races there in 1986 as he rattled off 7 wins. He brought the #25 home third in points and shared the Driver of the Year Award with Champion Dale Earnhardt. He was right there, on his way to racing stardom, Jeff Gordon before Jeff Gordon, the future bright and filled with certain wins and titles.

But things happen.

During the break between 1986 and 1987, Richmond took ill. By time the 1987 Daytona 500 rolled around, he had to withdraw because of reported double pneumonia. Benny Parsons took over the driving duties in the renumeraled #35 as Richmond missed the first few months of the season. He made his comeback in the June Pocono race. Remarkably, he won. He quickly followed that up the following week with a win at the now defunct Riverside road course in California.

But something was obviously wrong. Come August, he had to withdraw again and Hendrick put Benny Parsons back in the car. I remember it being really strange. I remember my dad thinking he was sick with something else, like cancer or something. Then, at the end of the season, he quit Hendrick. Just like that.

To NASCAR, this was all very suspicious. So when Richmond turned up with a new ride for the 1988 Daytona 500, NASCAR was waiting there with a cup for him to pee into. Richmond obliged, and soon after NASCAR made the announcement that Richmond had failed a drug test and would not be allowed to participate in the race. Richmond claimed it was a prescription respiratory medication he was taking, to which NASCAR played their trump card. They demanded his medical records in order to prove his innocence.

Richmond, of course, had no interest in revealing to the world he had AIDS. So he never raced again.

Back then, people were really confused about AIDS. There was a lot of ignorance. People thought it was a “gay disease”. So while Richmond probably knew very well what he had, he understandably was very protective about the truth. It wasn’t until after his death in August of 1989 that the truth about his illness was revealed to the world.

The following year, there were several news reports which called into question the authenticity of the drug tests administered by NASCAR. Dr. Forest Tennant, it is alleged, worked with NASCAR in order to “create false drug-test results in 1988 to bar Richmond from racing”. It is also alleged that Tennant worked with NASCAR to specifically develop a drug testing policy with the intent of ensnaring Richmond.

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In two short years Richmond collected a total of 9 wins for the #25 Hendrick Chevy. In fact, his win total for that car eclipses the combined total of all those who have driven the #25 in the 20 seasons since. This includes drivers like Parsons, Kenny Schrader, Ricky Craven, Jerry Nadeau, Joe Nemecheck and Brian Vickers. For all of it’s early promise, the #25 team itself has never had the storied history of its stable mates at Hendrick. It has always underperformed. Some say that there is a connection. Some say it is cursed in some way.

Personally, I don’t believe in such things. But do I have to remind you that the old #25 team is now the #88?

Like I said, synchronic strings.

Like I often tell my lovely wife who has been in record retail for 25 years now, the only people left in this business are the really passionate ones. And of course, those unqualified to do anything else.

There are many avenues one can embark on in the music business. There are those who strive to play a musical instrument or sing. There are those whose talents aren’t necessarily in making music, but in reviewing it, promoting it or managing its artists. There are also those foolish enough to embark on the path of making original music. God help those sorry souls.

I have in some way touched all of these music business facets with varying degrees of success. But it is the latter which has captured my soul whole.

I’ve been writing songs since I was 15 years old. Along the way, I adopted many instruments to help in my composition and many techniques to help me bring it to life through recording, engineering and production. I have spent sleepless nights pondering the perfect rhyming scheme, the nuances of a bass line or whether the reverb on the vocals has too long a tail. Its a tough slog, a largely personal journey of progression and betterment with scant opportunities for public appreciation.

As the digital age cannibalized the music business in the name of broad-banded progress, writers like myself were faced with both opportunity and full-scale diminishment. The lowered technical bar meant more artists than ever were able to record their music. Digital distribution and the internet’s wide reach meant that your competition wasn’t limited to the musicians in your town, or state or even country. But coupled with that came new distribution channels. A trade of sorts.

You can make better music more affordably, but you have to compete with the whole goddamned world.

If this sounds like I am sour about the way things are, I am not. In fact, I am making the best music of my life at the age of 42. It is getting into more hands than ever and I am doing it my way. It is an altogether brilliant time, particularly if one isn’t concerned with monetizing your art.

In fact, I am intensely excited by the prospects of opening up my record label, Wild Iris Records, to more artists. I am more intrigued than ever with ideas of music distribution, internet marketing and live internet video broadcasting. Every day that goes by, the fabric of this new music business unfurls itself to me, clear and functional, and ready to be made into something new. I may even figure out how to monetize it!

I often tell my friends that I will be making music when I am 80 years old. In my head, I see it as the Rockwellian cliche, and old man on the porch sitting in a rocking chair strumming an acoustic guitar. But in reality, it will more than likely be a scene from a Gibson novel, nodes wired into my head and MIDI cables strewn about, uploading my newest composition to the net.

No matter, one thing will still be the same. Finding that perfect bridge wil still be a pain in the ass.

So I must confess. Here I am, at the age of 42 finding a rekindled interest in the classic novels I should have read long ago. I get them on audio book, which is not to say that this is how I would prefer to absorb them. In a perfect and visually acute world, of course I would get the paper variety and enjoy them as they were intended to be. As that isn’t possible, I have surrendered to the audio book. It’s really kinda fun, especially if the person reading the novel is dynamic and gifted.

To this end, it seems I am following the career of the late Frank Muller, who voiced lots of audio books ranging from Charles Dickens to Stephen King. But it is in his voicing of Dickens that he is amazing. Accents, regional variances and everything. You have to hear this guy read A Tale of Two Cities… such talent.

Dickens is where I began my journey. I remember some of the movie adaptations as a kid and that era is interesting. So I moved through A Tale of Two Cities to Great Expectations and now onto Oliver Twist. In order to make something of a study out of it, I have also taken to doing research on the novel after I read it, historic frameworks and even old critic’s reviews. Interesting. Honestly, I really feel as if I am enjoying these novels more and that I am getting more out of them as an adult that I ever would have as a kid. So there. Take that, Dade County Public Schools!

I read Old Man and the Sea today by Hemmingway - pretty quick. Interesting. A fish is just a fish, I guess. But next up, I am embarking on something thick: All Quiet on the Western Front. I have no idea what I am in for. I never even saw the movie.

But I have the voice of Frank Muller to guide me. I wonder if he ever voiced The Adventures of Tom Sawyer…