SALEM, Ind. – Wisconsin racing legend Rich Bickle has announced that he will begin his last season of stock car racing at the upcoming CRA SpeedFest 2021 at Florida’s Showtime Speedway in the 200-lap ARCA/CRA Super Series event.
CRA SpeedFest 2021 is scheduled for Jan. 22-23, with Jan. 24 reserved as a rain date.
Bickle, who will turn 60 in May, has traditionally driven car No. 45 throughout his career. Entering the 45th year of his racing career, Bickle previously announced the 2021 season would be his final year in the driver’s seat.
“I’m looking forward to starting the asphalt racing season down at SpeedFest and Showtime Speedway,” said Bickle. “I think I may still have the late model track record down there from the late 80’s. I hope we can start my final season of racing off with a win, we were fast last year, and I expect to get to victory lane this season. If I can get a win that would be five decades that I have won a race in, not a lot of people can claim to have done that.”
Bickle has won hundreds of short track races, including the top super late model event in the country, the Snowball Derby, a record five times. Bickle made 85 NASCAR Cup Series starts, 54 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts and 79 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts, where he got three wins, all in the 1997 season.
In recent years, Bickle came back to short-track racing, making several starts in his home state of Wisconsin and in the Midwest. Bickle won a Snowmobile race last weekend in Wisconsin and will be testing an ARCA Menards Series car at Daytona Int’l Speedway this weekend.
Bickle recently released a book titled ‘The Barnyard to the Brickyard, the Rich Bickle Story’, which details his beginnings in racing through his career in super late models and NASCAR. The SpeedFest 200 Presented by Racecar Engineering for the ARCA/CRA Super Series will be his fifth start with the series and his second start in the SpeedFest event.