New Zealand racing driver Jason Richards was farewelled by family and friends on this side of the Tasman in a moving ceremony in Auckland this afternoon (Monday February 06).
V8 Supercar series regular Richards, 35, died on Thursday December 15 last year after a 13-month battle with a rare form of cancer, Adrenocortical Carcinoma. He was farewelled in Australia at a private family funeral in December and a public memorial service in Melbourne earlier this year.
At least 300 people attended the New Zealand ceremony in the new Giltrap Audi Centre on Auckland's Great North Road, with members of the close-knit New Zealand motor racing fraternity traveling from all over New Zealand - and Australia - to pay their respects.
Speaking before the service, boyhood friend and fellow kart and car racing champion Hamish Cross from Rangiora said that he will remember Richards as 'a friend, a fierce rival but most of all as a good bugger.'
"There was no one better, " he said. "He was just a genuinely great guy. "
Richards' fellow V8 Supercar driver and former teammate Greg Murphy agreed, saying;
"He was obviously a bloke who everyone got on with and everyone liked to be around, but for me the biggest thing about Jason is that he also knew how fortunate he was to be doing what he was doing"
Tears flowed freely as the speakers remembered Richards' infectious enthusiasm, ever-present smile and the way he always managed to extract the last ounce of speed out of every car he drove.
"Jason only knew one way to go about racing and that was to give it eleven tenths from the moment the helmet went on," recalled Murphy. " He just gave it 110% every single time he got in the car. It was foot to the floor, even if it was the first lap of a test session at Winton at 9 o'clock in the morning. For Jason there was no other speed."
At least 300 people attended the service where MC Clint Brown introduced speakers including Richards' parents Dave and Pauline, his wife Charlotte, racing drivers Cross, John Crawford, Murphy, Angus Fogg, and Craig Baird, long-time sponsor Greg Horne from BNT and Terry McEwen from Holden New Zealand.
