Hi, my name is David Richert and I have been asked to share with you a little bit about what I am up to in my life as a professional race car driver.
Seeing as this is my first blog it may be a good idea to take the time and introduce myself to you. I am 26 years old and reside in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where I have lived my entire life. I grew up on a family farm just outside of a small town of around 2,500. Our farm consisted of chicken eggs, pigs, and about 1600 acres of land for growing crops. My daily job was to gather the eggs in our 9,000 hen chicken barn, needless to say it was a fairly long and tedious job at first. But with time, I was able to gather all 9,000 chicken eggs in about an hour and half…and i’m proud to say that my personal record is 1hr 10 mins.
Growing up my passion, like many other young Canadians, was to be a hockey player. My life revolved around the sport of hockey and it is all I would think or talk about. Stories are recounted to me of how my teachers in elementary school actually banned me from referring to hockey in any of my assignments as I somehow had a knack for turning everything into a hockey analogy. The peas on my dinner plate would break out into a hockey game or my grandma would have to wait while holding the car door open to let all of the imaginary hockey players into the car with me. Hockey was life.
It wasn’t until many years later when I started to develop a passion for auto racing. I remember sitting in front of the television and watching a Formula 1 Grand Prix event. It intrigued me. Maybe it was the speed, the glamour, or just watching a human being try to control such a quick machine. My passion for the sport grew and I began to learn more and more about it. An opportunity came up to attend the 2001 United States Grand Prix held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was there that I stood in the upper deck seating on the front straight, I looked down at the cars streaking by, and decided that I would much rather be down in the cars driving than up in the stands watching.
This event set things in motion and I haven’t looked back since. I could fill pages of text recounting events of the past 7 years…and if the interest is there, I will do so, but let’s fast forward to the present date.
I am now racing as a driver for the world’s 3rd largest automobile manufacture, Volkswagen. From a group of 3,900 drivers from across North America, I was fortunate enough to be selected as one of the top young drivers. This earned me the right to compete in a newly formed race series called the Jetta TDI Cup. It is the first all diesel powered series in the world and features Volkswagen’s new Clean Diesel technology in all of the Jetta TDI Cup cars. The series consists of 10 races at many of this continent’s most famous facilities, many of the events taking place in conjunction with major grand prix weekends such as Grand Am and American Le Mans Series races.
In the weeks to come I will take you behind the scenes and provide a little insight into what life is like as a race car driver. I am currently on a flight home from Virginia where our first event took place so my next blog will most certainly recount some stories from the opening laps of the season.
Till next time…
Visit Richert Racing at www.richertracing.com
David can be reached at david@richertracing.com