How do you tune on a dirt car that’s on a track which is constantly changing?
I would go out on a limb and say that Josh Richards is more knowledgeable than most drivers when we’re talking about chassis setup. Just because he grew up around one of the few who’s building them.
For those that don’t know what I meant by that… Josh is the son of Mark Richards who’s the owner of Rocket Chassis.
“I’d just say he know’s the Rocket cars very well,” Randell Edwards, crew chief of the #1 Best Performance Motorsports machine tells RacingNews.co .
Right. So, does that make your job easier or harder?
That question is met with a laugh from Edwards. But he says, “I think it makes it a little easier.”
“Where we both can put our minds together and just try to figure out every situation all through the night.”
“That’s the main thing. Just making the right decisions at the right time.”
Yeah. How do you tune on a dirt car that’s on a track that changes constantly?
“You just gotta pay attention to the track,” Edwards continued. “That’s more than anything.”
“What helps us a bunch is that we’ve been to a lot of places. Between me and him, we’ve been just about everywhere there is to be.”
“Last year, he went to a lot of places that he’d never been but I’ve been to them. I was there the year before with Brandon.”
In 2016, Josh Richards ran with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series. He went on to claim the championship title. However, for 2017, Josh Richards made the move to Best Performance Motorsports as Brandon Sheppard went over to drive the Rocket Chassis house car.
The two drivers just swapped seats. In doing that, Josh Richards found himself at a lot of unfamiliar tracks in 2017. But, Best Performance Motorsports had a notebook from the previous season.
“That helped him to where I’d been there a few times even though he’d never been there.”
Come feature time, are you more or less guessing for what the tracks gonna be?
“Everybody’s guessing.”
You just go on a notebook of what the track did before?
“Yes.”
So, when the water truck comes out right before the feature…
“You’re really guessing,” Edwards says with a laugh. “You’re throwing all kinda stuff at it.”
“When they go out and work the race track. It’s very hard to really know what the track’s gonna do. So, you kinda just gotta put your car neutral.”
“That way if it’s wet early then it slows down later in the race — You can be half prepared in both situations.”
More
Josh Richards on the off-season and races he still wants to win
Josh Richards talks dirt late model aerodynamics
Would Mark Richards like to see a rule change to force a reduction of car costs?
