Richards to return at weekend's Hillbilly
Five-time national champion Josh Richards plans to end a nearly three-year absence from competition when he enters this weekend's Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Hillbilly Hundred at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., his father, Mark, confirmed today to DirtonDirt.
Richards, a 37-year-old native of Shinnston, W.Va., now living in western Ohio, will drive a car prepared by his father’s Rocket Chassis house car team. He tested the machine June 16 at Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio — his first laps in a Dirt Late Model since November 2022 — but didn't immediately announce a return date.
Lernerville’s doubleheader, which includes Friday's $10,000-to-win program and Saturday’s $30,000-to-win Hillbilly Hundred, is not only his first action since 2022’s World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C.. It also reunites him with his father’s iconic Rocket1 team, which he left following the 2016 season after winning four World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series championships over the first 13 seasons of his career.
It’s no surprise Richards, who won the Lucas Oil Series title in 2017 driving for Best Performance Motorsports, would pick Lernerville for his return. He’s enjoyed success at the 4/10-mile oval, including a victory in the 2013 Firecracker 100. He also made his first-ever WoO start there as a 16-year-old April 23, 2004.
Richards is a former Hillbilly Hundred winner, capturing the Carl Short-promoted race in 2019 at Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, W.Va., when he was driving for former NASCAR Cup Series regular Clint Bowyer’s team.
