Richard DaStard was a legendary racer - dubbed "The King of Speed" by his many fans - but once he advanced into the Wacky Races, his overwhelming skill completely wrecked the illegal betting pool that had been established for the event. Pressured by several powerful underworld organizations to throw every race, Richard has nowhere to go. He didn't want to give up racing, but he couldn't disappoint his fans by so obviously bowing in the face of the mob... At the peak of his career, Richard DaStard suddenly retired, to the bewilderment and disappointment of his fans, disappearing from the public eye. Nobody knew where he had gone. Months later, Dick Dastardly made his debut, sporting a getup so gaudy and unappealing it had to have been made so on purpose. This ugly, unappealing racer often set up elaborate and time-consuming traps which seemingly never worked as they were intended. The public soon grew to hate and disdain Dastardly, so incensed by the man's unsportsmanlike deeds that they didn't notice how often he took the lead in order to set up his 'traps'. They also failed to notice how, when Dastardly looked to be on the verge of winning, the perpetually smiling dog at his side chuckled sinisterly, and how the sound made Dastardly flinch despite himself. Dick hates himself behind the insidious laughs and fake moustache-tweaking, the only bright spots in his life the fact that he can still race, and the knowledge that Richard DaStard's legacy lives on in the hearts of his fans. - When he's racing on the track, the others far behind him... The wind shrieking in his ears and the world flashing by like a dream, Dick sometimes imagines that he can almost hear the cheers again. Alone in the realm of absolute speed, Dick closes his eyes and remembers what it was like to be King.
Oh, that makes so much more sense now. Thank you.
Unshopped.
Whaddya know; they actually drew him without his hat at least once.
Man, I'm rewatching my way through these, and in Whizzin' to Washington Dick starts out front with a presumably legitimate lead until Prof Pat Pending's cheating against Rufus Roughcut crushes the Mean Machine under a tree as a side-effect. Nobody in this show actually runs a clean race, except perhaps Peter Perfect. Although Dastardly's the only one who stops to create Wile E. Coyote traps. And in Rhode Island Road Race and The Great Cold Rush Race Muttley out-and-out sabotages him as he's about to win, the latter being at the narrator's instruction following a straight-up racing overtake.