From rock bottom to the edge of a championship, Richard Gadson’s fight for survival led him straight into his biggest opportunity
Richard Gadson’s turning point didn’t feel like one. It felt like the moment he finally admitted defeat. He was exhausted—financially, emotionally, spiritually. By late 2022, he wasn’t just struggling; he was sinking. The Pro Stock Motorcycle ranks were the deepest, most unforgiving waters he had ever tried to navigate, and he felt like he was drowning in a world where everyone else could breathe.
So when Eddie Krawiec quietly pulled him aside at Charlotte and mentioned that “some things were coming about” at Vance & Hines, Gadson didn’t hear opportunity. He heard pressure. Expectation. A chance he feared he couldn’t afford to ruin.
“Eddie pulled me to the side and told me that there were some things coming about,” Gadson said. “He didn’t tell me he was getting off a bike. He told me there were some rental bikes coming up or a new owner coming in… and asked me what I was doing next year.”
The truth was blunt and frightening.
“I told him, ‘Eddie, I don’t know what I’m doing.’”
At that moment, Gadson wasn’t thinking about contracts or competition. He was thinking about survival. He was tuning for Chris Bostick simply to make enough money to keep the lights on. He was driving to Charlotte while knowing eviction waited for him at home.
“We were looking at eviction,” he said. “We were two months behind on rent. The gig was up.”
At the end of the Charlotte race, when most of the pits had gone silent, Krawiec asked him into the Vance & Hines trailer. Gadson wanted to play it cool, but the truth came pouring out. He couldn’t pretend he was stable. He couldn’t pretend he was ready for a high-pressure factory ride.
“I said, ‘Eddie, listen, I would love to ride a motorcycle for you guys, but if I have to fend for myself off the racetrack, I’m going to mess this up every way from Sunday. I can’t do it. But if there’s any opportunities at Vance & Hines Motorsports for a job, I’ll take that before I take the ride.’”
He walked out believing he had just torpedoed the chance of a lifetime.
“I called my girlfriend and said, ‘I think I just messed that up.’”
But what Gadson didn’t realize was that honesty—raw, unfiltered honesty—was exactly what Eddie Krawiec needed to hear.
Two months later, the phone rang.
And before that call came, he endured one more breaking point.
“In between that time and Vegas, I remember a moment that really broke me,” Gadson said.
His tow truck — the foundation of his new business and the only source of income he had — was repossessed. He borrowed money just to get it back, trying desperately to claw out of the hole. Every account he had was overdrawn. Every option was drying up. And when the truck disappeared, so did the last shred of stability he was holding onto.
He pulled to the side of the road and broke down. Not from pride, but from exhaustion. From the overwhelming sense that he was fighting a losing battle on every front.
“At my wit’s end in every sense of the word,” he said.
Still, he boarded a plane to Las Vegas.
Still, he put on the helmet.
Still, he swung a leg over the Vance & Hines bike — because this wasn’t just a test.
This was an audition.
The kind that could change everything or end everything.
He made the laps he needed to make. He handled the moment. And afterward, team co-founder Terry Vance told him, almost quietly: Be at the shop.
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Gadson drove to Indianapolis the next day—leaving on his daughter’s first birthday—and walked into Vance & Hines unsure whether he was receiving a job, a ride, or nothing at all.
“They offered me a job,” he said. “They offered me the ride. And told me the whole deal.”
Relief washed over him. And then the reality set in.
He had six weeks to uproot his life.
Break a lease in Nashville.
Find childcare.
Repair a credit score in ruins.
Move states.
Start work January 3.
And somehow pretend to be stable enough to handle it all.
“I had no idea how I was going to make all this happen,” he said. “I was in the worst phase of my adult life.”
So he did something he almost never did: he asked for help.
“I called a bunch of friends, family… told them what I had coming. If I could just figure out a way to get there, I promised I could start working toward a consistent life.”
Piece by piece, people stepped in.
Someone helped with the move.
Someone else helped with money.
Someone else helped stall the debts.
“By the grace of God, I ended up making it happen.”
But even after he settled in Indianapolis, the stress clung to him like weight in the leathers. It followed him to the starting line. It showed up on the scoreboard. The pressure of NHRA life, the expectations of a legacy team, the residue of financial trauma—it all rode with him.
Still, Vance & Hines never wavered.
“The turnaround of them advising me, helping me get on solid ground… that’s been one of the biggest difference makers this year.”
As the NHRA tour rolled into the In-N-Out NHRA Finals at Pomona, Gadson arrived not as a longshot, but as a man holding the points lead in the final race of the season. The pressure was immense—one more weekend to decide whether the most important journey of his life ended with heartbreak or triumph.
And then the sky opened.
A massive California rainstorm swept in, washing out the final rounds and forcing NHRA to cancel the race. It was a chaotic, emotional end to a championship fight no one expected to turn out this way.
But here’s what mattered: Richard Gadson wasn’t shaken.
Not by the storm.
Not by the cancellation.
Not by the noise around it.
“If I know Richard Gadson,” he was told, “you would’ve been the champion either way.”
His answer was instant.
“100%. I decided I wasn’t letting nobody take this from me. I prayed on it. I asked God. And I was content. I knew it was written.”
He didn’t need a miracle to beat Gaige Herrera—just faith, preparation, and will.
“It doesn’t take a miracle,” he said. “All it takes is faith, preparation and I can beat him. And I’m going to beat him.”
Whether Pomona ran or not, Gadson knew who he was when he rolled in.
He found his peace long before he found the Wally. Not because life suddenly got easier, but because he had finally found solid ground beneath him—professionally, personally, spiritually.
And in one sentence, he explained his entire journey better than any writer ever could:
“I was always scared to mess up racing.”
That fear kept him from drifting into danger as a kid.
It kept him from taking the wrong path in the wrong city.
It kept him fighting when his accounts were empty, his truck was gone, and the rent was due.
It kept him alive.It kept him hopeful.And ultimately, it kept him moving forward long enough to become a champion.
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