Adam Beeler
Adam Beeler is one of the most talented Late Model racers in east Tennessee. At the same time, he serves as an integral part of the CVR Race Cars team that builds cars used by numerous winning drivers in this area as well as around the region and the country.
After driving his No. 66 Late Model for years, Beeler has recently driven the CVR house car for Chip Vineyard’s organization in addition to his own efforts. Furthermore, the Halls resident has his hands on each machine that rolls out of the CVR shop, essentially from beginning to end.
“I’ve been at CVR for about three-and-a-half years now,” the 31-year-old driver pointed out. “I started off on the fab side building bumpers and door bars then I moved my way up to building the frames and stuff like that. Now, I just kind of bounce back and forth, building cars and helping Chip do body work.”
CVR offers both chassis building and body work from its Lenoir City, Tenn. shop. Beeler assits Vineyard in virtually every aspect of those services.
“Chip stays on the body side and I kind of go back and forth keeping the guys lined out on the fab side and helping Chip throughout the day on sheet metal work,” Beeler explained.
The CVR house car serves as a way of not only advertising the company’s product but also testing new ideas for future cars that may be offered to customers. Beeler and Cleveland, Tenn. Late Model star Riley Hickman have shared the driving duties in the No. 1v ride this season.
So what does it mean to be a house car driver?
“It pretty much means that CVR owns the car and will have somebody else drive it, either me or Riley most of the time, and everything that we do is in house with this car,” Beeler explained. “If we want to test stuff, we can just load up and go. We don’t have to try to find somebody to go test for us.”
This can prove to be a benefit to CVR’s customers.
“We’d rather test it on our own car that’s in house so that if it doesn’t work we didn’t sell one of our customers something that’s not going to help them,” he added. “That let’s us make sure everything is going in the right direction before we put it on the market.”
Beeler at the wheel of the CVR house car.
From the personal side, Beeler says there are many positives in terms of driving a race car that come from working in a race shop throughout the week. However, there can also be some drawbacks from being so heavily involved in the sport on a day-to-day basis.
“You learn a lot, but then again, by the end of the week you’re tired from doing that stuff everyday,” Beeler admitted. “But when you get to the racetrack, you forget about all that stuff. It’s time to focus and go win.”
In the end, Beeler believes his success as a driver and CVR’s success as a company will depend on relationships. And he believes those are in place.
“Me and Chip have a really good relationship. I keep my own personal car at the shop along with the house car. It just depends on where we’re going.”
Riley Hickman also drives the CVR house car on occasion
