For all those who nurse seemingly impossible dreams, local race car driver David Richert is an inspiration. It’s hard to imagine more unlikely beginnings for a world-class driver than growing up on a family farm in southern Manitoba, not even discovering the world of racing until his late teens. Against such odds, Richert stands tall as one of Niverville’s greatest success stories.
Richert’s 2015 season is drawing to a close, with just two racing weekends, and five individual races, remaining on the schedule—at Nürburging and Hockenheimring, both Formula One race circuits in Germany. So far Richert has claimed a first place finish in Hockenheim, Germany, taking home the Formula Renault Austrian Championship. He then placed second a week later at the Tor Poznan circuit in Poland.
Making it onto these historic tracks has required a mixture of hard work, determination, and business savvy.
“Cars and racing wasn’t part of my life,” Richert says. “I didn’t discover driving until I was seventeen. I was all about hockey, like everyone else. While watching television one day, I watched the Formula One Grand Prix, the pinnacle level of motorsports, and it really intrigued me. That was the first point that really ignited something in me.”
Soon after, Richert trekked down to Indianapolis to watch a race with a group of friends from Niverville. “From the upper deck, looking down at cars moving at 330 kilometres per hour, I thought it would be a heck of a lot more fun to be in those cars driving than to be in the stands watching.”
The long road began with a year of go-karting with the Manitoba Karting Association based out of Gimli. “I thought it would be a stepping stone,” he says. “I wanted to make it to Formula One. That was the dream I had.”
Not long after attending a car racing school in Montreal, Richert was invited to participate in a test session with a professional team in the United States. In the span of a year of a half, he went from never having raced anything to driving a very quick professional racing car.
“The team owner pulled me aside and said, ‘David, of those here, you have the most talent and ability.’ So I’m thinking, great! I’m going to get a chance to drive.” That’s when Richert learned a hard lesson about the economics of the sport. He saw that without money and sponsorships, talent alone wouldn’t be enough to get where he wanted to be.
“At that point, I totally turned my life around. I dropped by Blue Bomber season tickets. I stopped going golfing, even though I loved it. I stopped going for dinner with friends. I put every last dime I had
into my racing career to make it succeed.”
The results speak for themselves. This year alone, Richert has raced in Italy, Belgium, Austria, the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, and Holland. “If you want to play hockey, you play in Canada. If you want to race cars, Europe is the place to be. The best of the best drivers are there.”
Compared to the big races he still aspires to, such as the Monaco Grand Prix, the crown jewel of motorsports, some of his current victories may seem small-scale. But characteristically, Richert maintains perspective. “At the end of the day, whether it’s a big race or a small race, the champagne tastes the same.”
