Once the Howe Racing program was discontinued, Mark continued with WRC racecars until the spring of 1986. In the fall of 1986, they built the first building on the current Shinnston shop location and Mark Richards Racing, Inc. (MRRI) was created. During that time, MRRI was a Bullitt Race Cars dealer and repair center from 1986 to 1991.
In 1991, Mark Richards had Ray Callahan (Bullitt Race Cars owner) build two chassis to Mark’s specifications. One of the cars won two races at West Virginia Motor Speedway in the same day. Davey Johnson drove the car and mentioned to Mark, “Mark, this thing comes off the corner like a rocket!” The following week at Pennsboro Speedway the car had Rocket Chassis on the nose.
Another item of note, Mike Balzano had the other chassis Richards designed and Mike finished 2nd and 3rd in the same races at West Virginia Motor Speedway.
After winning the races at West Virginia Motor Speedway, Callahan called Richards and told him he wasn’t going to build anymore of the cars that Richards designed. Mark had orders for that new car design and they had to be fulfilled. Besides Richards and Baker, the other employee was Scott who worked with Mark at WRC. Both Scott and Mark knew how to build chassis, so they decided to start building their chassis design in Shinnston, WV.
In the first year, MRRI built 70 chassis. The 2nd year in business they built 140. Fast forward to the mid-2,000s and MRRI was building 300 chassis/year.
5,000 cars later, they are a leader in the dirt late model industry.