Mark Richards knew there was plenty of interest surrounding his son Josh’s first fast laps behind the wheel of a Dirt Late Model since the 2022 season. And with last weekend’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Firecracker 100 at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., being the Rocket Chassis house car owner’s first racetrack appearance since Josh’s comeback test, he was naturally peppered with inquiries about his son.

So how many people brought up Josh to the elder Richards?

“A lot,” Mark Richards said with a laugh. “Everybody wants to know when (Josh is going to race), and I don’t know. And I’m not lying. I don’t know.”

Richards couldn’t give a concrete answer regarding his son’s competitive future. All he’s able to relay is that Josh took a step toward racing again when he donned a uniform and helmet, climbed into the cockpit of a new Rocket house car prepared by his father’s crew and circled Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio, during an evening test session on June 16. An official return is still uncertain for Josh, now 37 and inactive since his last start in November 2022.

What does appear clear, however, is that Josh’s natural talent hasn’t disappeared. A test isn’t the same as a full-fledged race, but he immediately was back up to speed.

“Like he never left,” said Rocket Chassis crew member Austin Hargrove, who was at Sharon for the test. “Like, I figured he would go out there and make a slow lap, feel it out. We didn’t even know if it would go in gear, you know what I mean? I mean, did we prepare it right? You just never know if something’s wrong.

“But he pulled out the gate … and (he was) to the wood. It’s like he never left.”

Mark Richards said Josh was turning laps even with, and sometimes better than, the other drivers who were also at the test: Rocket house car pilot Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., Lucas Oil Series rookie Dan Ebert of Lake Shore, Minn., and cousins Chub Frank and Boom Briggs, both of Bear Lake, Pa.

“Well, I mean, it looked just like he always did,” Mark Richards said. “I’ve seen him a lot over the years, and, I mean, it just wasn’t no surprise that he was just going to go out there and do it like he did before.”

Josh is, of course, one of the most accomplished Dirt Late Model drivers of the past two decades. After debuting in October 2003’s special event for up-and-coming young drivers during the Dirt Track World Championship at Bluegrass Speedway in Bardstown, Ky., he flashed precocious ability racing much of the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series in ’04 and was a winner on the national tour by ’05. He went on to win four championships on the WoO circuit plus another national crown when he switched to the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in 2017, and his resume boasts 78 WoO triumphs (second all-time), 33 Lucas Oil victories (eighth all-time) and six checkered flags in crown jewel events (two DTWC and USA Nationals, one Firecracker 100 and Prairie Dirt Classic).

But Josh walked away from the sport following a sixth-place finish in the 2022 WoO points standings driving for Boom Briggs. He made no detailed public announcement of his decision, and he hasn’t been seen around racetracks since he stopped competing. He’s settled into a life away from the sport, living in western Ohio, not far from Rossburg’s Eldora Speedway, with his wife, Andrea, and working for her family’s kitchen-installation business.

Last year, however, came the first indication that Josh was interested in suiting up again. 

“It actually started (over a month) before the East Bay (Raceway Park) race last year,” Mark Richards said, referring to October’s scheduled $50,000-to-win grand finale at the track in Gibsonton, Fla., that was ultimately cancelled by hurricane forecasts. “His wife wanted him to run East Bay, and we was at the World 100 (in September) and I said, ‘Well, there’s a car there (at the shop). You guys are going to need to drive it down there, but it’s ready to go. You can take the other truck and trailer.’

“And then he just thought the timing was too close, so we talked about putting a car together for next year — for this year — and done our part with that. It’s ready to go.”

The existence of that brand-new Rocket XR1.2 machine with Josh Richards’s name on the roof became public knowledge in early May when someone snapped a photo of the car while at the Rocket shop in Shinnston, W.Va., and it ended up appearing on social media. It took more than a month from that point for Josh and the Rocket1 team to find a suitable time and place to get him on the track.

According to every Rocket1 team member, Josh arrived at Sharon for the Monday evening test anxious and ready to make laps again. In fact, that was evident by the phone calls he made to them in the days leading up to the test, not to mention the attention to detail he showed.

“It was just typical Josh,” said Steve Baker, the Rocket Chassis co-owner and former Dirt Late Model racer who also was part of the entourage with Josh at Sharon. “He hadn’t been to the shop or anything, but we had his old seat mounts from when he had raced before and measurements of how to put the seat in the car, and fortunately, we got it in there right because he is really particular, like how far it lays back and how he sits in the car.”

Mark Richards noted that it was Josh who sent the numbers for the specific way he wanted the seat mounted.

“Usually it’s a two-, three-day project,” Mark said of correctly placing Josh’s seat in a car, “but Austin did a good job off the measurements. He seemed comfortable. It was just a matter of getting the steering wheel and throttle and all that fitted to him. And that took a little bit of time, but nothing major. Thirty minutes, they had him in it and ready to go.”

Hargrove was tasked with making sure Josh’s cockpit was to his liking.

“I mounted the seat, but he sent the brackets,” said Hargrove, who never worked as a crewman for Josh because he arrived at Rocket1 in 2017 just after Josh departed and was replaced by Sheppard. “And the way those seats mount, there's really about only one way they can go with the holes where you had them before. So I guess his mounts were probably out of Boom’s car or maybe out of a (Clint) Bowyer car, I don’t know. 

“So I just mounted that (in the shop) and Mark looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, that’s the way his seat sets.’ He likes to lay back quite a bit. And then we was gonna put the seat belts in it and Mark said (to Josh), ‘What kind of seat belt you want?’ He said, ‘I want the old-school, 3-inch-wide adjustables. Not ratchets, just the standard stuff, so you didn't have to worry about getting your hip (belts) the right length or anything like that.’ So that was pretty easy.

“And when he got there he made sure his seat and helmet blower and everything was good,” he added, “and then he went out there.”

Sheppard saw the meticulous Josh Richards he remembered.

“I learned a lot from Josh throughout the years and it seemed like he was same old Josh when he got there,” said Sheppard, who since following Josh in the Rocket1’s seat in ’17 has matched Josh’s WoO record of four championships (Sheppard won three of the titles driving the Rocket house car). “He was sitting in the seat, changing a bunch of stuff before he went out as far as getting comfortable.”

Baker said Hargrove and the crew “had to move a little bit” in the driver’s compartment for Josh after he arrived at the track. “He sat in the car for a while, and he was like, ‘Let's move the gas pedal a little bit. But then once he got in it and got out on the racetrack, it was just like he raced last weekend. He come out of the back gate and was wide open down the front straightaway.”

Sheppard never ran close enough to Josh on the racetrack to offer a full review of Josh’s performance from that vantage point, but the stop watch said the two stars were even in speed.

“From car to car, we could run the same times,” Sheppard said. “We switched back-and-forth a little bit.”

Despite his lengthy absence from driving, Josh offered valuable ideas that made Sheppard’s car faster.

“He was a big help to us the other night,” Mark Richards said of his son. “I mean, his feedback has always been really good. And (this time) it was from a different perspective, you know? He hasn’t been out here running, and he said, ‘You know, this is what I see these cars doing, and now I can feel it, and this is where I think we need to work.’ So we worked there a little bit and it seemed like it was better. 

“We had to get Brandon’s car closer to Josh’s. Josh’s car, it was a little better at the beginning, and then we got Brandon’s car a lot better before it rained.”

Baker saw the immediate impact Josh had on the technical side.

“It was good, and he was in a really good mood,” Baker said. “He gave us a lot of good feedback and a lot of good information that we needed. Even if he doesn't race, if we can get him to do that, come testing with him, that’ll be big. 

“Today he still watches all of our races. He watches every race. So before he went on the racetrack, he said, ‘You know, we need to fix the race car at this point on the race car.’ And he had some ideas of what to do to do it.”

Baker would certainly prefer, however, that Josh becomes more than a test driver for Rocket Chassis. He said he’d do “whatever it takes to get him to the racetrack” to enter a race, including taking a lead role in overseeing an effort with the Rocket1 crew’s time being limited over the coming weeks as they embark on a particularly busy stretch of their 2025 schedule with Sheppard.

“I’ll go to the racetrack with him if I have to,” Baker said. “I’ve got a couple guys that can go with me, because we can’t take anything away from that (Rocket1) race team. Those guys have to concentrate on that, where I can go with Josh and concentrate on him.

“I can still tell people what to do,” he added with a laugh. “I can’t do it (race) anymore, but I can tell people.”

Baker noted “we tried to get him to come here” to compete in Lernerville’s Firecracker, a race Josh won in 2013. “I said, ‘Josh, if you want to run Lernerville this weekend, we’ll make sure we got everything together and the people that can do it,’ but he had something going he said.” Baker suggested this Saturday’s $20,000-to-win Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series show at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., another possibility for Josh, but it doesn’t appear that will happen either.

Mark Richards said they’ve left the decision on a comeback date and track for Josh up to him.

“Whenever he decides he’s ready to go, we’ll try to make it happen,” Mark said. “It’s just going to be a tough right now because we’re getting ready to get busy. It would be hard, just not having the whole crew there, you know, to help him with it. Because these cars, it’s quite a bit to race one of these things today. It's not like you just load up and go race.

“I think he’s definitely itching to go. But he’s got business and things going on, and he’s not been living the race life. He’s been living ‘normal life’ as far as what most people do. When you become a racer, you sacrifice a lot, and he’s gotten used to going on vacations and just having a normal time schedule.

“People just don’t understand this lifestyle and they don’t understand what these teams sacrifice to do this,” he continued. “Not very many people do. They don’t understand how hard it is to travel, the time away from family, the time away from just life. You sacrifice everything to do this at this level, and I think Josh has got out of that mode and, you know, I don’t think he’s anywhere near ready to go back to this lifestyle.”

Mark said he saw a spark in Josh, noting that Josh “was wanting to go more (with the test), but it was raining too much” so the session had to be cut short. He expects Josh to figure out a time to make his return. He did mention that one race he’d love to see Josh run is Oct. 3-4’s Lucas Oil Series-sanctioned Pittsburgher weekend at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway in Imperial — an event Josh won in 2007 and ’16 — but he’s also hopeful that the comeback won’t wait until the fall. 

Hargrove asserted that he’s looking forward to Josh’s return to the competitive scene.

“I would love to see him racing,” Hargrove said. “I think he just wanted to make laps and just see what they’d changed (on the cars) and how they feel and have fun for a moment. But I think he can strap his helmet on and get it done again today. There’s no doubt my mind.

“You never know what could happen. The sport nowadays, it takes every step all night long to put you where you need to go. You could unload, set fast time and have something happen in the heat race and your whole night's blown. But I think that he could come back tomorrow and put his helmet on, and if everything fell your way, he may win … but I think he’s capable. Very capable.

“It would be cool to see him come back and race when he wanted to and when his schedule allowed him to,” he added. “It was fun (to test with Josh), and I’m glad he got to make some laps. I know everybody else was waiting to see it, so there was their answer.”

Sheppard enjoyed reconnecting with Josh at the track and seeing him in a race car as well.

“Yeah, for sure,” Sheppard said. “We talked a few times about what he thinks we need to be working on, and it’s just like anything in racing, it’s a process. So you know, having him there to feel it, and just listening to what he had to say, was cool. And like I said, he’s very knowledgeable and really always was somebody that I looked up to in racing as far as driving the race cars. So it was definitely cool to see him make the laps.

“It would be cool to see him race again, see if he’s still got it, so …”

Sheppard paused. Snicking about his comment wondering if Josh could still get the job done, he made one addition to sum up the possibility: “I’m sure he'd be just fine.”