Rich Bickle

Bickle at a 2015 race

Born

May 13, 1961 (age 55)
Edgerton, Wisconsin, U.S.

Achievements

Four-time Slinger Nationals winner (1992, 1996, 2003, 2013)
Five-time Snowball Derby winner (1990, 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999)
Two time National Short Track Championship winner (1990, 2010)

Awards

inducted in the Southeastern Wisconsin Short Track Hall of Fame (2015)

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career

85 races run over 12 years

Best finish

38th (1999)

First race

1989 All Pro Auto Parts 500 (Charlotte)

Last race

2001 Old Dominion 500 (Martinsville)

Wins	Top tens	Poles
0	3	0

NASCAR Xfinity Series career

54 races run over 7 years

Best finish

24th (2001)

First race

1994 Busch Light 300 (Atlanta)

Last race

2003 Bashas' Supermarkets 200 (Phoenix)

Wins	Top tens	Poles
0	9	1

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career

79 races run over 7 years

Best finish

2nd (1997)

First race

1996 Florida Dodge Dealers 400 (Homestead)

Last race

2005 Toyota Tundra 200 (Nashville)

First win

1997 Craftsman 200 (Portland)

Last win

1997 Hanes 250 (Martinsville)

Wins	Top tens	Poles
3	34	6

Richard "Rich" Bickle, Jr. (born May 13, 1961 in Edgerton, Wisconsin) is an American racing driver. Now retired, Bickle, who has never completed a full season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, had a long history in short track racing. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described him in 2012 as a "stud on the short tracks in the late 1980s and early '90s and a journeyman who rarely caught a break in NASCAR." He won three NASCAR truck races, had a career-best fourth-place finish in NASCAR Winston Cup (now Sprint Cup Series) in 218 career NASCAR starts.

Bickle was brought into the sport as a child, when he watched his father, Rich Sr., race throughout Wisconsin. The younger Bickle began racing at the age of five. While winning the 250cc championship on Sunday nights when he was 16, he raced stock cars at Jefferson Speedway on Saturday nights in 1977. He went behind his father's barn to pick out one of his father's old racecars and selected a beat up 1968 Pontiac GTO. "It was so beat up you could hardly tell what it was." Bickle started racing a 1974 Pontiac as a sportsman at Jefferson for the second half of the 1977 season and the whole 1978 season. Bickle stopped racing motorcycles after he graduated in 1979. He built a 1972 Ford Torino with a 302 cubic inch motor that year, which he began using at mid-season. He used the car to win a heat and the semi-feature at Columbus 151 Speedway in the car's first night out, and it ran well at Lake Geneva Raceway and Rockford Speedway. That off-season he changed the rear clip on the car to improve it for Rockford before deciding to give away the car and build a new one. In 1980 he raced weekly at Rockford, Lake Geneva, and Capital Speedway (now Madison International Speedway), winning 23 semi-features which was the most in the United States. He was named the Sportsman Rookie of the Year at Lake Geneva and Rockford.

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Wikipedia