The late Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup (now Monster Energy Cup) points championship and has been inducted into five halls of fame.
Donnie Richeson, the competition director for Ken Schrader Racing Inc. and crew chief for Fort Kent’s Austin Theriault in the ARCA series, used to work with Kulwicki and said there are a lot of similarities between Kulwicki and the 23-year-old Theriault.
“Austin reminds me so much of him. He’s like a mirror image of him,” said the 56-year-old Richeson on Wednesday.
Theriault and Richeson lead the points in the ARCA series heading into a stretch of four races in 20 days beginning with the Shore Lunch 250 at Elko Speedway in Elko, Minnesota, at 9 p.m. Saturday.
Through five races, Theriault has amassed 1,325 points to lead 2016 ARCA Rookie of the Year Dalton Sargeant of Boca Raton, Florida by 110 points. Shane Lee of Newton, North Carolina, is third with 1,180 points.
After winning the season-opening Lucas Oil Engine Treatment 200 at Daytona International Speedway, he has posted two fourth-place finishes, a fifth and a sixth in his last race at Toledo Speedway on May 21.
“We’re tickled to have him. It has been a pleasure working with him so far,” said Richeson, who has been involved in racing for 42 years and is in his 14th year with Schrader. “He takes his job seriously. He puts a lot of time and effort into it. He’s at the shop all the time. He does what he can. He’ll work on the cars with us, he’ll go pick up a part to save us some time so we can get ahead.”
He likes the fact Theriault gets the most out of the cars during the race while also taking care of them.
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