In 1973, the Heatway Rally attracted several of the works teams running in the inaugural World Rally Championship, although it was not itself a championship event. Ford offered him a ride as the 3rd driver in their works team alongside rising star Hannu Mikkola and NZ champion Mike Marshall running Ford Escort RS1600s. Richards was running second to Mikkola going into the first mountain stage. Having never driven on ice before his car caught an icy patch in the middle of the night and slid wide off the road and rolled down a bank for 100 metres. He and co-driver Richard Halls were very lucky that they came to rest on a narrow outcrop before tumbling over a deeper gorge. They were hauled out at dawn, and with surprisingly little damage were able to resume the rally, albeit out of contention. Thereafter he was consistently quicker than Mikkola, who had a comfortable race-lead and had eased off. The rally ended with a tarmac stage at Pukekohe, where Richards was back on very familiar territory.