RPW Column: A Look Back At Richie Eurich’s Dominating Eastern States 200 Win In ’88

Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – In the Northeastern part of the United States, there’s a place that every racer who straps themselves into a Big Block Dirt Modified wants to reach. It’s not an actual place in the physical sense, but it is certainly a coveted place.

That place is the top of the Northeast Dirt Big Block Modified Racing Mountain.

Getting there is like winning the M.V.P. award in Major League Baseball. Once you have won that award, your legacy will always be remembered. The same is true with the racing mountain. Once you have won the type of race to get you there, you have cemented your legacy that you have made it to the top.

As Big Block Modified racing has moved from era to era, the names that have made it to the top of the mountain are legendary. From the early era of Frankie Schneider and Will Cagle, names like Wayne and Buzzie Reutimann, Bobby Bottcher, Gerald Chamberlain, Kenny Brightbill, Gary Balough and many others won the big races to get them to the top. As the years moved forward, names like Brett Hearn, Alan and Danny Johnson Jack Johnson, Billy Decker, Jimmy Horton and many other would join the group on the mountain with big wins. These days, you often see Stewart Friesen, Matt Sheppard and Mat Williamson getting the type of wins that further enhances their standing at the top.

By no means are the names mentioned above the only ones to ever make it to the top. It’s a long list, but considering the amount of drivers who have competed in the Big Blocks over the years, it’s still a quite exclusive list.

By 1988, Rich Eurich had been racing over 20 years. Over the course of his career, he had his share of success. Starting in 1967, he first raced in the OCFS Limited Sportsman division. Quickly, he started amassing a good amount of wins and captured the 1970 OCFS Sportsman championship.

Moving into the Big Blocks, Eurich was the 1971 Nazareth Speedway champion. He finished a solid 2nd place to Wayne Reutimann in the 1975 Eastern States 200. Eurich’s mid 70’s Pinto remains as one of OCFS’s most iconic and best remembered cars from the era.

As racing moved into the 80’s, Eurich won back to back championships at OCFS in 1981-82. As he picked up wins throughout the mid 80’s, Eurich was still looking for that big win that would put him at the top of the mountain.

As his plans for 1988 were taking shape, things were changing for Eurich. His Dad had always owned the cars, but for ’88, Rich would be the car owner. The Eurich team decided to go with a car from Tobias Speed Equipment.

“A lot of thought of what they wanted in that car came from Rich, his brother and crew chief Dave Eurich and Paul Lotier of Tobias,” said Andy Walther, longtime sponsor and crew member for Eurich and owner of Midnite Auto Parts in Pine Island NY. “We got a late start, didn’t get the car until mid February and we had to scramble to have the car ready for opening night.”

“There were some new things in that car that Tobias wanted to try and some new things that we wanted to try,” said Dave Eurich. “It didn’t go real well at first, we couldn’t get the car to turn, it had too much bite. But we worked with a number of things, springs, shocks and stagger and we got it better.”

It was the 2nd week of the season at OCFS that made people take notice that Eurich was going to be a major force to be reckoned with at OCFS in 1988. It was the Spring Twin Track 100 race. Rich raced down leader Hearn and passed him and went on to a convincing win. Just the fact that Hearn had been passed while in the lead was a very rare thing. Up to that point in Brett’s career, there was a statistic that he had only been passed a couple of times when he was leader of a feature race, but Rich had done it.

“We knew that night that we were going to be okay,” Andy said. “Rich wasn’t happy after the heat race and he did something that I had never seen before. He got the crew together in a huddle and said what we were going to do. He wanted changes on the springs and torsion bars. We worked on all 4 corners of the car and we had no idea how it would work. But Rich knew what he wanted and he went on to the win.”

Rich and the team did something different in 1988. For the first time, he and the team decided to race the Super Dirt Series Tour.

“We had always wanted to run the tour,” said Dave Eurich. “It required a lot of planning, making sure that we had enough crew for the midweek races. But we knew that we had a good car and it was a good experience.

In addition to the Twin Track win, Eurich went on to win 4 more OCFS races before the Eastern States Weekend and he was the ’88 Modified Champion. One of those races was the Super Dirt Series race.

“Rich started near the front and took the lead early,’ said Walther. “Even though we had been running well, it was tough competition in that race and it seemed to take forever for those 88 laps to click off.”

Eurich also had a 2nd place finish to Kenny Tremont at the Lebanon Valley Super Dirt Series race. In September, Rich nearly had that big win he had been looking for. While leading the Lebanon Valley 200, Billy Decker passed Eurich in the final corner coming to the checkers to grab the win.

“It was great take 2nd in that race, but it was disappointing as well,” Dave Eurich said. “We made a mistake on tires at the pitstop and it cost us at the end.”

The ’88 Super Dirt Week did not go well for the team. After a crash, the car had to head back to the Tobias shop for work.

The 1988 Eastern States Weekend was a larger than usual event. The Fall Twin Track race had been rescheduled into the weekend. As often happens, weather played it’s role in the weekend. Friday was a washout and all the qualifying would be held Saturday along with the Twin Track 100. Time trials were cancelled. The first few rows of the 200 would be determined by the heat winner’s last lap speed. The #10 was once again in top form as Eurich’s 22.7 lap topped the field by a half second and would start the 200 from the pole.

After finishing 2nd to Mike Ricci in the Twin Track 100, the Eurich crew went to work to prep the car for the 200. Not happy with the car after the race, Rich and the crew spent the overnight hours making changes.

As the green flag waved for the start Schaefer Beer Eastern Stares 200, Eurich got the jump on outside front row starter Hearn and sprinted out to a comfortable lead. Lapped traffic was no problem as Rich was able to slice through field and maintain a healthy cushion over the other top runners.

“I was watching from between the 1/2 covered and grandstands, his car was so dominate,” said Michael Corwin, son of famed photographer Ralph ‘Gypsy’ Corwin. “He was lapping cars 6 laps into the race.”

As a long distance race unfolds, one of the more interesting things to observe is what pit strategy the teams will use. Many times in the 200, leaders will choose to pit early and hope that their tires and fuel will hold up. Eurich’s team went with a different strategy.

As the race neared halfway, Eurich was still in front, running a tremendous pace, but he had yet to hit the pits. As the laps clicked off, it became plainly visible to those in the grandstands that his right rear tire was getting soft. Eurich took the halfway bonus money, but the tire was looking very poor. And on lap 106, the right rear finally gave up.

As the caution waved, Eurich ducked into the pits. The attention was suddenly thrust upon the #10 crew. Their performance would determine if Eurich would still have a chance to win. And it was their time to shine. Eurich’s crew got him back out without losing a lap, a great job under pressure.

“We had planned on pitting the first caution after halfway and when the yellow flew, I didn’t realize that the caution was for us,” Dave Eurich said. “But we were able to get him back out on the lead lap and thought we were in good shape.

It was the extra racing that the Eurich team had done in 1988 that helped his crew that day.

“With Lebanon, Syracuse and some of the other races requiring pitstops, we got to be pretty good,” Dave Eurich said. “Certainly not NASCAR quality, but we got to be quite proficient. We had worked on pitstops at the shop as well”

After the pitstop, Eurich seemed to be stuck around 10th place. The car did not seem to have the drive that it had earlier in the race.

“At one point, Rich radioed in and said he was thinking of coming back in,’ Dave said. “But he didn’t and that turned out to be the right decision.”

Rich started moving back towards the front, passing a car for position every few laps. By lap 150, he was back into 5th. Eurich got by Danny Johnson and Hearn and moved up to 3rd by lap 160. This set up a duel between leader Frank Cozze, 2nd place Jack Johnson and Eurich.

For the next 15 laps, they ran in a tight group with Eurich lurking in the high groove. He got past Jack for 2nd on lap 177 and passed Cozze for the lead a lap later.

Once in front, Eurich again exhibited his dominance as he quickly checked out and spaced himself from Cozze and Jack. He was running some of the fastest Big Block Modified laps ever seen at that time at the 5/8th’s oval, in the 21 second bracket. The speed he showed compared to the rest of the field at the end of the 200 was truly amazing to see.

After one last caution, a final restart with the green and white flags waving saw Eurich again showing his strength again as he pulled away for the biggest win of his career over Cozze, Jack Johnson, Decker and Johnny Strupp.

It was a joyous Victory Lane that followed.

“It was just super in the beginning,” Eurich said. “The car just kept getting faster and faster, they told me that I ran 21.7. When the tire want flat and the caution came out, I was just hoping that no one would get into me. After the stop, the car didn’t want to go, but then it came on and I knew we had a good shot at it.”

And Rich summed up his season this way.

“Its been a great season, a great bunch of crew, great motor man, great sponsors. What can I say, everything is great when you win like this.”

Although the blue #10 won’t be racing in the upcoming Eastern States Weekend, the memories of that day remain. I’m sure that as I’m watching the cars circle the track, my mind will drift back to October 22, 1988, the day that Rich Eurich, a true weekend racer, raced his way to the top of the Northeast Dirt Big Block Modified Racing Mountain. And he did it in style, cementing his position and legacy there with a dominating win against the best that the circuit had to offer.