Mark Richards and his Rocket Chassis organization have been particularly hard at work these last few months.

Not only because their house car team had gone 48 races between victories — from Hudson O’Neal’s Feb. 6 win at Florida’s East Bay Raceway Park to Tim McCreadie’s Nutrien Ag Solutions Topless 100 triumph Saturday at Arkansas’s Batesville Motor Speedway — but Richards and company have been developing the latest version of the longtime manufacturer's chassis.

The XR1.2 — Richards calls it the XR-one-point-two — is the newest line of Rocket race cars expected to carry the Shinnston, W.Va.-based company into the future. While the XR1.2 “still revolves around the original XR1" that had been Rocket’s model chassis since 2015, it’s a “completely different chassis” from its predecessor.

And Richards is feeling especially good about the redirection of his esteemed chassis business after McCreadie won the 12th race out on the car since it debuted July 22 at Davenport (Iowa) Speedway.

“We knew we were getting close,” the 63-year-old Richards said on getting his Rocket Chassis house car team back on track and back in victory lane. “We just don’t have as many (teams) as the other camps got. Next year looks good for us. We have some (teams) coming. This is the new version of the XR1, the XR1.2. We improved the things we needed to improve on. I think we’re getting there.”

If there’s anything Richards has learned over his 50-plus years in Dirt Late Model racing, it’s “these cars run at about a 10-year cycle.” This season marked the ninth for the original XR1.

So, as this year took form — an unorthodox form that’s seen Hudson O’Neal depart the house car program and Rocket Chassis clients come and go — Richards began noticing more and more just how paramount it is for Rocket Chassis to look toward the future.

“I’ve had this on my mind for a while, stuff we’ve had on our minds for a while,” Richards said. “I will say, Timmy is a different driver. He does need different than what, you know, some of my other drivers needed over the years. But I feel like we have a car now that fits more, I’ll say, not so much the average driver, but most people.”

Part of the reason Richards has jumped ahead midseason to construct his sixth-ever model chassis since his Mark Richards Racing days in 1986 is because he very much recalls “we went a year or two longer than we should’ve” with the blue front-end car, which carried Rocket Chassis from 2004-15. He admits he’s seen a dip in Rocket Chassis on-track performance this season.

“XR1s won so many races, we were in a comfort zone,” Richards said. “What happens is, you don’t realize it, you are winning 25-30 races a year, and you get, I won’t say behind, but you get content.”

What’s so different about the XR1.2 as opposed to the original XR1? Richards is of course vague on details, saying “there’s some stuff different on the frame” that better fits today’s technology.

“With the old car, it was hard to get where we needed it to exactly be with the way the car was built,” Richards said. “We had to make changes to some of the structure on the chassis to fix some of those issues. We moved around some stuff, found some things, and I feel like we’re headed in the right direction.”

Before Richards and company officially rolled out the XR1.2, he’d been tinkering around with the XR1’s framework in the months before. For instance, at June 20-22’s Firecracker 100 at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., the Rocket Chassis house car team “changed the front-end geometry” and “changed some things with the rear end” to which McCreadie said “we got better.”

“It didn’t show because we’d started 13th and run second, or even seventh,” McCreadie said. “But I’m like, ‘Hey, man, we’re better.’ Then Mark went to work and we debuted this new car. And it’s been really good.

“I think we’ve been fast,” McCreadie added. “Before Mark built this new car, we were way better. We had a stretch where we were way better. Lernerville with the regular car, the standard XR1, we got better.”

McCreadie placed seventh, third, and sixth during Firecracker weekend. Since then he’s flirted with several victories: leading laps July 11 at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa; finishing third in July 19’s Silver Dollar Nationals prelim at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D.; finishing second Aug. 2 at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis., in a USA Nationals prelim; a third-place run Aug. 8 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., on Sunoco North-South 100 weekend; and Friday’s third-place finish at Batesville.

That’s a victory, five total podiums, seven top-fives and 11 top-10s in the last 13 starts. McCreadie’s also risen from fifth to fourth in the Lucas Oil Series standings with five points races remaining in the regular season. Furthermore, he’s outscored series points leader Ricky Thornton Jr. by 80 points since July 20’s Silver Dollar Nationals.

“The minute I drove (the XR1.2), I said, ‘It’s in the racetrack way more. It moves around like I want a car to do,’ ” McCreadie said. “I think it’d be way better for the all customers because, in my opinion, it has a really big window for when you’re off a little bit. That’s the beauty of the car.

“The beauty of any car you drive is you try to make it so good it doesn’t matter who drives it. If you get it close, you run good.”

To McCreadie’s point, Bear Lake, Pa.’s Boom Briggs started 19th and finished eighth in Saturday’s Topless 100. That’s significant because Briggs notched his third-ever top-10 finish in a 100-lap event on the Lucas Oil circuit. He posted eighth-place finishes in 2020's Dirt Track World Championship at Portsmouth (Ohio) Raceway Park and 2017's Pittsburgher at Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh Motor Speedway in Imperial, Pa.

“Like, Boom (Saturday) running eighth is big for us,” McCreadie said. “It’s very big for us. Boom has struggled and struggled in a couple different brands of cars. And he gets in this thing and says he’s way better. He’s qualifying through heat races and not running B-mains.

“He ran in the top-10. You build off that. It’s very rewarding. We know how hard we’re working.”

Richards agrees. As crucial as it is for Rocket1 to trend upward again, it’s equally important for Richards to see his closest customers, like Briggs, succeed.

“For Boom to be able to run top-10 in a race like this, it just shows we’re headed in the right direction,” Richards said. “We have guys, more of the average guys running good. … (Lucas Oil rookie) Clay Harris, he also has (an XR1.2) and while he’s had bad luck, he said there’s no comparison" with the new car and the original XR1.

Briggs, who Saturday stood alongside Richards in the Batesville pits listening to his chassis maker, chimed in.

“You understand I’m 53 years old? And he built a car for me to start 19th and run eighth,” Briggs said. “I should’ve ran fourth. It’s great Timmy won … but it just shows how good these cars are. That sells cars, and that attracts national attention.

“Timmy McCreadie is expected to win. Boom Briggs isn’t supposed to start 19th and run eighth. And listen to me, if (Jonathan Davenport) picked the bottom (on the final lap-87 restart), I would’ve ran fourth.”

Added Briggs: “Quote me on this: There’s nobody in the pit area that works harder than him,” Briggs said pointing at Richards. “Nobody.”

“Well, I used to,” Richards responded. “I don’t know if I work that hard now. I have people that do. I have good people. I’m fortunate to have the people we have at the shop and at the track. That keeps us going.”

Briggs remained unconvinced. “I’m telling you,” Briggs continued, “he works harder than anybody.”

Richards shook his head and put Briggs’s comments into perspective.

“I don’t work as hard as I used to,” Richards said. “I used to go 24 hours a day, four days at a time. Now I can only do 10-12 hours at a day and that’s it.”

So the average work week for the average American, Richards says?

“And I have to get eight to 10 hours of sleep now,” Richards said. “I used to never sleep. I laid down in the shop and slept for an hour. And got back up to go get it again.”

“He’s not BS’ing you,” Briggs added before Richards continued to provide perspective on how much he’s toiled to keep Rocket Chassis at the forefront of the sport.

“I didn’t have no help back then. I didn’t have much help,” Richards said. “I didn’t afford it. We’re not like the other people in this business. But as I got to where I could afford help, I hired help. That’s what keeps us going.”

Richards doesn’t technically build cars anymore. He said he “gave up welding 25 years ago.” Scott Purkey, who Richards claims has assembled nearly 6,500 now since 1988, oversees fabrication.

“We very rarely get lean. We stay steady,” said Richards, whose Rocket co-founder Steve Baker this month joined him in the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame. “We have 6,400 cars out there and a parts business that’s crazy. That room stays busy all the time. The shop room is as busy as can be. They can’t take anymore work. Now we’re backed up on 50 cars that’ll take us three to four months.”

Richards “feels good going into the latter part of the year” with the momentum and excitement behind the XR1.2. He realizes Rocket's market share has slipped with four Rocket drivers among DirtonDirt.com's Top 25 power rankings: No. 7 McCreadie, No. 11 Tyler Erb, No. 22 Gregg Satterlee and No. 23 Ashton Winger. In Lucas Oil points, the fourth-standing McCreadie is surrounded by Longhorn Chassis drivers among the rest of the top eight.

“No, I don’t take it personally,” Richards said. “It used to be a problem. But that doesn’t bother me anymore. The older you get, the thicker your skin gets. You learn how to deal with it and you don’t let it bother you. (Hall of Fame chassis innovator C.J.) Rayburn used to say, ‘They’ll be back.’ I just say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do what we can do.’ We have plenty of work. We have more than what we can do. I’m looking for help right now.”

Richards says the company’s built 25 new XR1.2s so far and there’s roughly 50 of them waiting to be built over the next few months.

“And probably 70 after (Sunday),” Briggs said. “Monday, it’s game on. This race car is going to sell.”

In fact, one of Richards’ prospective add-ons for the remainder of 2024 and on into ’25 was a driver nobody would’ve likely imagined to team with Rocket Chassis: the late Scott Bloomquist, who died Friday in a plane crash on his family’s Mooresburg, Tenn., farm.

“Scott and I had gotten closer and closer,” Richards said. “I’ve thought about him a lot. We talked two weeks ago and he was going to take one of these (new XR1.2’s) and keep it at his place and test for me. That’s what he wanted to do.”

Catching wind that Rocket Chassis has a new race car on the market, Bloomquist called Richards, his longtime competitor, in the days before July 26-27’s Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway.

"We were talking quite a bit,” Richards said, as Bloomquist gained additional respect from Richards having worked with Rocket customer Garrett Smith of Eatonton, Ga., a former Dirt Track World Champion.

“Scott and I were getting along the past two or three years,” Richards said. “We’ve been getting along really good. When (longtime Bloomquist collaborator) Randy (Sweet) died, he called me quite a bit.”

Richards would’ve loved to see what Bloomquist thought of the new XR1.2. Bloomquist had plans to test the car and perhaps race it. Richards appeared more than open to a partnership of some kind.

“I have a lot of respect for Scott with everything he’s done,” Richards said. “He lived a different lifestyle than most. He lived a rock-star lifestyle. But he did it his way. And he won a lot of races. I have nothing but respect for him.”