sonona cart racers who went to become professional racers

Lanier, the highest-profile of the lot, was a full-time member of the CART fraternity driver when the feds came knocking during the summer of 1986. With the 1984 IMSA GTP championship in hand, Lanier went in search of a new challenge by entering 10 CART races in 1985, and by 1986, open-wheel racing was his primary focus. The story might have started in endurance racing as the smugglers spent lavish sums on exotic GTs and prototypes that bore no sponsorship markings, but CART is where the ugly end came crashing down.Īlthough the quartet of owner-driver-smugglers are permanently linked to IMSA, when all four were taken down in 1986, most had become Ind圜ar’s problem.

(to a lesser degree), also took a toll on the CART Ind圜ar Series. It was Miami Vice-era sports car drivers, run amok in the GTP series, evading the FBI and DEA from Daytona to Monterey.Īs RACER’s Robin Miller wrote for On Track in 1986, the dubious marijuana-related deeds of Randy Lanier, Bill and Don Whittington, and John Paul Jr. In the normal telling of the 1980s tale, IMSA is the place where racing’s drug smugglers made their home. In the absence of Miller’s Mailbag this week, here’s a classic story from Robin projected through a modern lens.

Sonona cart racers who went to become professional racers