Friends and fans of the late Jason Richards will gather at Sandown Raceway on Monday afternoon for their chance to farewell the people’s Champion.
Richards lost his battle with a rare form of cancer tragically just before Christmas. A private funeral was held for the enormously popular Kiwi driver a week later.
The Memorial Service will give Richards’ massive legion of fans the opportunity to say goodbye. Richards’ Facebook site, the TeamBOC website and V8 Supercar websites received tens of thousands of posts upon hearing of his passing.
The ceremony will commence at 3.00pm with formal proceedings from 3.30pm. Special tributes to Richards will be made by his closest of friends. Most current and many former V8 Supercar drivers will be attending.
The Richards family is attending along with a host of V8 Supercar drivers including Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander, Russell Ingall, Will Davison, Jason Bright, Paul Dumbrell, Cameron McConville, Fabian Coulthard, Steve Owen, Andrew Jones and one of Richards’ closest friends, John Bowe.
Among the official speakers will be Richards’ father David Richards, Bright, Dumbrell and McConville.
Important things for the public to note are:
Parking: In the Members & Public external carparks
Entry: Via the Main Gate turnstiles (Gate 2), not the motorsport end. Gold coin.
Memorial: Grandstand seating area in the middle of the grandstand, overlooking the Mounting Yard
Media: All media are most welcome to attend and cover the memorial. Officials and drivers will be available for interview.
Sandown is the venue of Richards’ first-ever V8 Supercar Championship podium result in 2005 with Jamie Whincup and Tasman Motorsport and where he very nearly caused a boil-over to win the Sandown 500 in 2003 in a late-race dice with Mark Skaife.
“It is important that all of those people that Jason touched over many years can gather at the same place together to say their goodbyes,” close friend, former co-driver and fellow V8 Supercar driver Cameron McConville said.
“Jason’s family wanted to have the Memorial as close as we could to his passing to thank the thousands of fans for their support in the last few weeks, which has been incredibly difficult for his wife Charlotte and the kids. He was the ultimate people’s person, always so positive and beaming no matter what life presented. Jason was like that to the very end.”
Richards started 131 V8 Supercars Championship events and 284 individual races after making his debut with Team Kiwi Racing at Bathurst in 2000.
He also made 10 non-championship event starts in this time at the Australian F1 Grand Prix support events at Albert Park, the last coming this year as he returned for a one-off appearance.
Despite not making a V8 Supercars Championship race start this year, Richards took part in a range of co-driver practice sessions earlier in the year and tested the #8 Team BOC Commodore in between treatments.
He won an emotional race in a one-off appearance in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series in Adelaide driving one of his old Tasman Commodores for Greg Murphy Racing and also drove a Ferrari in the Australian GT Championship on the same weekend.
He made his last trip to Mount Panorama in October, driving an HQ Monaro in the popular Touring Car Masters category. A runner-up result on Sunday morning before The Great Race to Glenn Seton was met with universal acclaim up and down pit lane.
His last race appearance in a V8 Supercar came at this year’s non-championship Albert Park 400, where a gutsy Richards qualified a brilliant fifth and claimed a gallant second place in race two after leading early.
A three-time Bathurst 1000 runner-up (with Whincup in 2005, Greg Murphy in 2008 and McConville in 2009), Richards made 13 starts in Australia’s most famous race, the first in a BMW 320i in 1997.
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