Randy Weaver and his son Cameron Weaver are on a new trek after shutting down the super late model team
At the start of the 2019 season, Randy Weaver signed Tanner English and they hit the road for Speedweeks. English battled for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win in the final night at East Bay Raceway Park.
After leading the majority of the race, his lane went away from him. Following a late race restart, he dropped for 4th. But, that race showed what could have been for 2019.
Shortly after Speedweeks, Randy Weaver announced that he would be shutting down his super late model operation. English has recently landed on his feet with a new ride with Big Frog Motorsports.
Weaver is still at the race track. Now, he’s having fun with his Cameron Weaver via a crate late model program.
This is a new route for Cameron as well. The 20-year-old has run under 30 races in his late model career. Previously, he worked as a crew member for the super late model team. With that side of the company shutting down, it’s left more time for Cameron to climb behind the cockpit.
Randy Weaver
Are you doubling down on the crate deal now that you’re not burning buckets of money on a super late model team?
“No, we already had all this stuff. Just, I want to have a little fun now,” Randy Weaver explained to RacingNews.co .
“I didn’t come out and say I was broke. I just said I wasn’t going to spend no more money on super late model stuff,” Weaver said with a laugh.
“When sponsors got tangled up and couldn’t do their commitment. I just won’t spend my money to that extent. If I’m going to do that, I’m going to let me son enjoy it rather than somebody else’s son enjoy it.”
“We knew all that going in. If they would have come up with the money, we’d be sitting here with two haulers and two race teams. We’d both be having fun.”
“Sometimes, you gotta be smart enough not to overextend yourself. Because a super late model is so far out of hand on expense, you gotta have 2-3 good sponsors.”
Were you surprised with the sponsor backing out? Or are you saying you kinda knew going into Speedweeks that might happen?
“We knew it. Even Tanner knew it when we did our deal, it was all in contention with the sponsors.”
“The sponsors had been, just like a lot of people, they’ve over-committed theirself with other co-op advertising. It wasn’t a single one person.”
“They said, ‘You’d have your money, next month.” Then, it was 3 months. Then, they said we’d have it after Speedweeks. We come back from Speedweeks and they were still juggling.”
“I said, ‘You know what? My dad raised me a little smarter than this.’ You just gotta decide, this ain’t gonna work. I’m not going to keep dumping money in this thing hoping that 3 months will finally come.”
“I was open with Tanner to start with. Since then, I’ve sent him quite a bit of sponsor money and product, trying to help him. He’s an excellent kid and gonna be a really good racer. I still try to help him all I can.”
“Right now, we’re just going to have some fun and let me son race. He was anyway. But, he was only getting to race 10% of the time because he was actually helping us work on the super all the time.”
“We still got all of our three businesses going. We’re busy. My son’s getting to race some. I just don’t own any of that big stuff no more.”
Done with super late model racing?
Is there a longer term goal or desire to get back into the sport on the super late model side?
“I don’t really have it. A couple of those same sponsors, they want to do something as soon as they get things re-organized I guess. It would kinda be hard to get me in it.”
“I love our sport. I eat it up better then anybody. It’s been good to me. But, it is in such a downward motion, as far as being cost effective. If they don’t get a handle on it, you ain’t going to be able to see it anyway.”
More
Randy Weaver shuts down super late model operations
Tanner English talks the national late model tour
Tanner English is running a throwback car to his dad’s 1991 car (2017)
