How Jason Richards became New Zealand's touring car champion and a V8 Supercars driver

Jason Richards won three straight national touring car titles in his home country before crossing the Tasman. He raced in V8 Supercars from 2000 to 2010, and his best Australian result was second at the 2009 Bathurst 1000 for Brad Jones Racing. Illness ended his full-time career in late 2010, and he died in December 2011.

How did Richards get his start in racing?

He first raced at eight, in 1985, at the Nelson Kart Club, and went on to collect 35 karting championship victories around his home country. His first car race came in Mini 7s in October 1992, where he finished sixth on debut. The following year he was third in both the national and South Island Mini 7 series, and he also set the most pole positions in the field.

That progress earned him the Most Improved Driver award, and it pointed him towards bigger machinery.

A failed Formula Ford plan turned into three national titles, a V8 Supercars career and a trophy that still bears his name.

What went wrong with his open-wheel ambitions?

In the early 1990s Richards wanted to race single-seaters at a higher level. An early test at Oulton Park for Andy Welch Motorsport was meant to open the door to a British Formula Ford programme, but that idea collapsed, and a New Zealand scholarship also slipped away.

A late invitation to race in the Formula Ford events that ran alongside the Nissan Mobil 500 weekends at Wellington and Pukekohe arrived only hours before first practice, because he had an exam to sit at Waimea College. The rain-soaked second race at Wellington showed what he could do in an open-wheeler, even with little experience behind him.

In 1994 he worked as an instructor at John Crawford's racing school and raced for its team in the Formula Ford Winter Series. He finished runner-up to his teammate Andrew Neale. He then contested the New Zealand Formula Ford title with that outfit, locking horns with Shane Drake all season, and Drake took the title on points.

After that season he switched to touring cars.

How did he become the touring car benchmark at home?

Richards entered the 1995 New Zealand Touring Car Championship with International Motorsport, under the BMW Motorsport NZ banner, and collected two wins from six races. The next season he ran a full programme without a win, rising to fourth in the points. That same season brought a one-off appearance at Amaroo Park for CPW Motorsport, in Australia's Super Touring series.

His third season in the category brought a strong step forward. He won five of 12 races, but his teammate Brett Riley edged him in the points. Richards also took five of the eight rounds in the New Zealand Racing Drivers Club Series that year.

1999 was a clean sweep. He won all 12 rounds and took the first of his three consecutive crowns. A 2000 campaign with 11 wins from 18 races secured the second, and in 2001 he drove for the new Team Kiwi Racing with BMW cars, winning eight races and the third title.

What did the Team Kiwi Racing years in V8 Supercars look like?

Richards debuted in the category at the 2000 FAI 1000, sharing the car with Angus Fogg. They qualified 23rd and finished 16th, a respectable effort for a small squad with few resources.

2001 was his first full year in V8 Supercars, and it was a learning curve. The team lacked resources and testing time, and that showed when he failed to make the grid at Phillip Island and Eastern Creek. His first solo race, at Adelaide's Clipsal 500, ended almost as soon as it began after heavy damage on lap one. The next day he came through from 38th on the grid to finish 16th in race two. A fourth place in the rain at Pukekohe, in the first race of that weekend, drew praise from observers.

2002 kept the squad in the lower half of the field. Their car was an older VT Commodore passed on from Perkins Engineering. A third place in the reverse-grid race at Canberra changed the mood, bringing the first podium for both driver and team. Other teams had started to watch him, and Kieran Wills, who was building his own outfit for 2003, was among them. Richards then made his exit from Team Kiwi at the close of 2002, joining Wills's Team Dynamik.

How did Team Dynamik and Tasman Motorsport compare?

At Team Dynamik in 2003 Richards was handed a car that lacked pace. The best moment came at the Sandown 500, where he and Simon Wills started fifth and kept clear of trouble for much of the race. Mark Skaife was dropping back with electrical trouble, and Richards closed in. Lunging for the lead on the penultimate lap, he went off into the sand and threw away what would have been the team's best result.

Other results that year were modest. He finished fifth at Oran Park, and a rollover in practice at Pukekohe forced him out of his home round.

In 2004 he joined Tasman Motorsport as its only full-time driver. He was a regular in the top ten, and although a podium eluded him, his 14th place in the standings was a clear step up from the year before.

The 2005 season saw Tasman add a second car with Jamie Whincup, relocate from Sydney to Melbourne and sign title sponsorship. Early mechanical trouble held Richards back, and a major rollover in Queensland wrote off his car. He was back fast, bringing a repaired Commodore home sixth at Oran Park. In the endurance rounds he and Whincup took third at the Sandown 500 and second at Bathurst, where Mark Skaife won after a late battle.

What did the 2006 Winton win involve?

Richards's only V8 Supercars victory came at Winton in 2006, in a reverse-grid race that started from the front row. Earlier that season he had taken provisional pole at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, and podiums followed at Hidden Valley and Phillip Island. Reverse-grid races returned to the championship that year, and the format gave the field a different shape.

At Pukekohe he came second behind Garth Tander in another reverse-grid race, his first podium of the year.

In 2007 Greg Murphy became his teammate. Podiums came at Surfers Paradise and Symmons Plains, and at Surfers he finished third overall in round points. At Bathurst the pair were in a four-car fight for victory and crossed the line as the first Holden, though without a podium.

The 2008 season was harder. Accidents and mechanical failures at Wanneroo, Winton and Bahrain cost him four races. His only podium that year was second at Bathurst, after Murphy passed Steven Richards late in the race.

Why did he join Brad Jones Racing?

Richards signed with Brad Jones Racing for 2009 and announced the move at the end of 2008. Fifth in the season-opening round in Adelaide was a promising start, and by the end of the year he had taken a maiden pole at Hidden Valley. Those results also revived interest from the top teams, and the Holden Racing Team made him an offer.

He turned that offer down because he had agreed to stay with the Albury-based squad. He had come to value the team and its surroundings, and he wanted that association to continue for as long as possible.

Bathurst that year gave him his best moment in the sport. With a few laps left after the safety car restart, he was third behind Todd Kelly. He passed Kelly with a bold move at Forrest's Elbow and then chased down race leader Garth Tander. In the end he took second, alongside Cameron McConville, which was his third Bathurst podium.

The 2010 season began sluggishly. Two rounds in the Middle East produced little, but from Hidden Valley through to Townsville he built a string of top-ten finishes. At Phillip Island he and Andrew Jones took third in the L&H 500. Bathurst went badly: a heavy crash in practice at Forrest's Elbow bent the chassis rails and the team missed qualifying. He finished 23rd, seven laps down. He also took part in two further events that season, at Surfers Paradise and Symmons Plains.

How did illness change his final years?

He was admitted to hospital on 16 November 2010 and was diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma. He stepped back from full-time driving, and Andrew Jones took the seat for the rest of the year. Between treatments he kept racing on a part-time basis in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series, the Australian GT Championship and Touring Car Masters, and he carried on testing for Brad Jones Racing through much of 2011. Testing duties remained part of his role with the team throughout that year.

In 2011 he stood in for Jason Bargwanna at a non-championship race held as a support event for the Formula One weekend at Albert Park. He finished second in race two, the final podium of his career in that category.

At the season's opening Fujitsu round in 2011 he drove once for Greg Murphy Racing and won the second race of the weekend.

Richards died at his home on 15 December 2011. He was survived by his wife, Charlotte, and their two daughters, Sienna and Olivia.

How is Richards remembered?

Brad Jones Racing has carried a star logo bearing his initials on the driver's side of its cars since 2012. Each year the club in Nelson holds a multi-class event named the Jason Richards Grand Prix.

The Jason Richards Memorial Trophy goes each year to whichever driver tallies the most points over the New Zealand round of the Supercars Championship. It began in 2013, when the series came back to Pukekohe, and it took the place of an earlier memorial trophy from the Hamilton 400. The event moved to Taupo in 2024, and from 2026 the trophy spans two rounds with the Christchurch addition.

Jason Bright and Brad Jones Racing were the first winners, a fitting pairing given that Bright was Richards's last teammate. Jamie Whincup, who had partnered him at Tasman and finished second with him at Bathurst in 2005, took the trophy in 2015 and 2017. An illustrated documentary of his life appeared in 2012.

Career highlights at a glance