Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

.-4 00 ~ .-4 Nick Richichi: Our next road race star? By Gary Van Voorhis 46 There were quite afew surprised people when the AMA announced at their annual Professi07l41 A'wards Banquet that Nick Richichi had won Rookie of the Year honors. The first question asked was Nick, who' The second was how could a road racer, with only six Nati07l4ls to run, out-point the dirt track rookie candidates who had 20 Nationals in which to score points' The answer is that Richichi m4de the most of the events he had to run and the dirt track rookies did not have a good year by any standards. Interestingly, he failed to score points in two ofthe six meanmg that Richichi Uldllu away with RoY honors based on just four finishes. That is very respectable considen'ng no other "pure" road racer has ever taken rookie honors. Richichi, of Fresh Meadows, New York, celebrated his 2'th birthday February I ,. He is single, spends a good deal of his time working and the money he m4kes goes nght back inio racing. He lives with his mother to keep his expenses down. At present there is only one dnVing force in Richichi's life, he wants to be "a full time professi07l41 rood racer. " Did you ever think about ~ting got sucked into his draft. He pulled it Winston Pro Series R.ookie of the in and I didn't make it. Year at the beginning of the season? What does winning Rookie of the No, not at all. Riding 7!)0s was kind of Year mean to you? a big thing to me, and I was warned by It's a bit of a surprise. You know it's lots of people to take it easy the first nice to hear something about a year and basically I just wanted to road racer winning an all· around finish all the races. However, Daytona award that's up for the dirt trackers as well because there's a lot more dirt does something to you. Everything went good up until the rime of the track events than road race events. I race. and then something just got hold guess the dirt trackers just had a slow of me and made me go a little more year for first year Experts. than what I should. I crashed on the Did you know you're the fint pure road racer to win the rookie title? founhlap. Was it over exuberance? That's nice to know, that's real good. No, it was David Aldana's draft. I I can see it's pretty difficult to do. I drafted Aldana going iruo the didn't have such an easy year. I should chicane. He had a four-stroke and I have had a couple of more good didn't realize that at the time. He finishes. I didn't have the manpower flipped the gas off and I just kind of to take care of the blow-ups when they happened. It was my first time to get to the tracks and the practice is really imponant. Do you think it hampered you to be riding the fint time on each track? Yeah, and on that bike. The bike (Yamaha TZ7!)0) takes a little getting used to. I probably ran my six races with about as much intensity as they did their dirt track Nationals. Financially, was the outcome of the season good? Well, it was easier than the year before. Did you ruD on a shoestring budget? At times, but I had lots of good friends to come to my rescue. It must be hard to run on a minimum budget? Yes. Definitely, money is needed. How did you actually get into road racing? I think I was about 19 or maybe 20 and I lost my driving license for driving over the speed limit on my motorcycle. I didn't think I was going fast, but I kept getting pulled over for outrageous amounts of violations. I lost my license and I still wanted to drive (ride) so I wound up out at Bridgehampton one weekend. I just started to have a good time at it. Then, when I got back out on the street again I was a normal human being. I was like a commuter again. What were you racing when you started? I rode a 900 Kawasaki, it was a Zl--a good bike. What caused you to move from club ranks to AMA racing? I wanted to race a Superbike. However, you don't just jump on one. You have to work your way up through the ranks -- the 250cc Novice and Lightweight scene. I really got into that. The bike (250cc) showed me I could do a lot more with it than a big bike. Slowly, my interest turned to GP racing because the bike was more capable. You know, I've yet to enter a Superbike race with a first class ride. How did you get your Yamaha TZ750? The bike belonged to road racer Avrum Gudelsky. He was killed at Mosport (Canada) in 1979. His wife and tuner arranged a price and I bought it. The bike needed a little work, but it was affordable. How mucb help does Kevin Cameron contribute? Kevin has a lot to do with my efforts in racing. He stands behind a lot of what you see. He's been a great help to me and is a very good advisor. He does some of the work and tells me what to do for the rest. Have you done or wanted to do any other type of racing besides road racing? I think my ability can be stretched out a little bit. I fooled around in the dirt although I've never really raced MX. I don't care for MX as much as I care for flat track. What was the high point of last year's season? I don't know. I guess it would be Laguna Seca or Loudon. Pocono could have been good. What happened at Pocono? A $4 pulser coil decided to take a vacation on the first lap of the National. It was one of those things. Everything had gone well up to lhen. I think Pocono could have been my high point. but I'll never know. It was frustrating after finishing second at Loudon and seventh at Road Atlanta and sixth at Laguna Seca. What was the low point of the season? . The Road Atlanta National. I kept blowing the engine up. I spent seven hours out in the parking lot working and waiting in the broiling sun. My motor was spread out over three parking places. I wasn't having a good time. I had to get up at 5 a.m. just to start work again. Nothing went right. I would fix the motor and go out to practice and then blow it up again. I spent just about the entire weekend inside that motor. How did you manage a seventh place finish if the engine was such a problem? At the last minute I was kind of giving up and all these friends came around and said. "You know you're crazy." People started picking up things, I wasn't even saying anything, and I was pretending everybody knew what to do by this time. They started pitching in and we got it together and it wasn't even warmed up when I went to the starting line for the National. We just started rolling it up to the tech line, and they told me to shut it off. I said. "Aw, come on it's still cold." I think the four minute sign was up and we were in a rush to get out there. Do you feel satisfied with what you accomplished last year? No complaints. Did you have a goal before you went into the season? No. I guess I just went inco the year with a cautious attitude, just feel the place out. I don't slack off on trying to do as good as I can, but I think I did hold back sometimes. I would just sit back and observe. Did finishing second at Loudon - in front of a partisan crowd - turn you on? You know it. Sometimes I think about it and it bugs me that I didn't win il. but there were so many other times when things were 50 much worse that to have a finish like that -- well, you can't help but to feel happy about it. I usually have a lot of bad luck at Loudon even though it is a track I race

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