Randy Weaver
Randy Weaver has proven himself to be one of the best racers in the southeastern region of the United States for many years. And based on the Crossville, Tenn. native’s impressive record from last season, there’s little reason to believe that 2016 won’t produce even more outstanding results.
At the same time, however, Weaver will be looking to step out of the region from time to time and go up against more nationally known competition in some of the sport’s bigger events. Still, though, the driver plans on keeping his home life as a top priority as well.
“Our plans this year are to do all the SpeedWeeks stuff as long as we’ve got good equipment left,” Weaver explained in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com during the Georgia/Florida SpeedWeeks segment of the racing schedule. “Then when we get back home, we’ve only got one customer car to finish then we’re going to go out and race as much as we can. We’ll probably do more Lucas than anything but we’re not going to do all of it. We’ll try to balance between the family and racing but race at least twice as much as we did last year and be around home as much as we can. But we’re going to venture out and see what we can do.”
In 2015, Weaver got off to an amazing start as he piled up feature win after feature win on tracks all over the south early in the season. Among the 12 victories the No. 116 team amassed during the campaign was a $20,000 triumph in an Ultimate Super Late Models Series sanctioned race at Virginia Motor Speedway and a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win at Smoky Mountain Speedway.
What will it take for the 46-year-old pilot to match or even improve upon last year’s success?
“It’s going to take a lot of things to fall in place, but you never know, this is the best in the business and that’s who we want to race against and see where we line up,” Weaver declared. “These places down here aren’t really my cup of tea but I’ve got learn to adapt. We’ve got really good equipment and we’re looking forward to seeing where we shake out.”
Weaver believes that the new rules being instituted by the various sanctioning bodies across the sport will ultimately prove to be a good thing. The racer who also sells race cars and equipment knows that containing costs can benefit everyone involved as long as all involved cooperate and work together.
“I hope everybody around home gets on board with this and takes out some of the stuff,” Weaver said of the rules package initially put in place by the LOLMDS. “I’m not saying it has to be rule-for-rule but there’s several in there that need to be handled. With my team, it doesn’t really matter. We’re fortunate enough that we could buy about whatever we needed but that still isn’t fair to the regional guys.”
The veteran driver believes that the new mandates will help to level the playing field for all drivers and teams.
“Everybody might think it is too much, but after it all shakes out and nobody is running good and all the same people are winning, they’re going to get tired of that too,” Weaver said. “Instead of bucking up, I hope everybody looks at it real close and makes the right decision and it will be better for our regional racing around Tennessee. At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters to me.”
Randy Weaver in his Cornett powered Longhorn Chassis
And one thing Weaver hopes to do more of in 2016 and beyond is race at his home track, the Crossville Speedway, which is now under new management with plans to host bigger shows.
“I hope we can get over there,” he insisted. “It’s not far from the shop so as long as it don’t hit on dates that we’ve already got stuff we’ve got to go do. I’m excited about that. I’ve told them for years that I may never race there again but I always want my home track to do good and it seems like these guys have got it, they’ve been racing, and they understand that side of it. They’ve got some businesses so hopefully they understand that side. I’m hoping it will be really, really good and they get some good racing in there for the fans to watch so they can realize that this sport isn’t done and we can still put on good shows.”
Weaver plans to race this weekend in the Tennessee Tip-off at the Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn.
