THE STORY OF RANDY LANIER: AMERICA'S MOST WANTED MAN IN 1986
If you haven’t sat down and watched Netflix’s ‘Bad Sport’ I think you should seriously consider watching it as a race fan. I couldn't get enough of it. One story of their ten part episode series caught my attention to write this blog about America’s most wanted man Randy Lanier. On December 7, 1988 the Indycar rookie of the year was convicted of importing and distributing 300 tonnes (a full cargo ship container) full of weed, which killed two men from a methane explosion on a docking yard. Not only was he racing in GT’s and Indycar in the motorsports golden era but, behind all the fancy cars and a lavish lifestyle of a race car driver he was also hiding away a secret from the public that he was America’s biggest drug trafficker.
Randy Thomas Lanier was born on the 22nd of September 1954, Virginia, he grew up on a small tobacco farm owned by his parents at a young age where he once heard on the radio that the Indy 500 was playing in the background in his dad’s barn. His dad was a farmer, and his mum was a caretaker at a psychiatric ward. When he was 13, the family had moved to South Florida where he attended Miramar High School. Lanier began selling the ‘devil lettuce’ on school grounds, where he eventually got caught and was suspended. After this, it clicked that he could make fast money selling drugs, which was far better than any “regular” job with a nine to five basic wage.
At the tender age of 15, Lanier began to sell weed on the side of his construction job.
By the time he was in his early 20’s, he bought his first investment, an $18,000 dollar Magnum luxury jet boat, equivalent to $74,000 in today's money. After that he knew he could buy fast things and have a better lifestyle than he originally grew up with. He even began powerboat racing for a short while, like the cocaine cowboys, with his business partner Ben Kramer. Along with their mate Eugene Fischer, the three of them ran a multimillion dollar weed business and drug empire from 1982 to 1985. They bought a fleet of tug boats that would help bring in cargo boats full of marajuana from Columbia, Mexico and other parts of South America.
Lanier himself actually began his motorsport career back in 1978 when he bought himself a run down 1957 Porsche 356 sports car with his drug money. He used the car to compete in the E Production class at the SCCA Southeast Regional Championships, which he actually won the series in 1980. In 1981, he moved up into the IMSA Camel GT Championship and debuted at the Daytona Finale with his co-driver Dale Whittington where they finished 30th in the Whittington Brothers Porsche 935. The following season is where Randy Lanier made a real name for himself when a team member of the North American Racing Team asked him to replace the future hall of famer Janet Gurthrie aboard a Ferrari 512 for the event.
By the time 1984 had come around, after driving for several different teams in the previous seasons, including grabbing a 2nd place position at the 24 Hours of Daytona, Lanier eventually formed his own race team called ‘Blue Thunder Racing’ with Bill Whittington, the team consisted of two lightning blue March GTPs Chevrolet’s headed by mastermind crew chief Keith Leyton. The drug funded team was beating factory teams such as Porsche, Chevrolet, Ford and Nissans. He even was approached by Ford to race for them as a factory driver but turned them away and continued to stay with his own team for the rest of the season. Lanier’s teammate Bill Whittington had way more experience than himself at the time but, in the team's rookie year Lanier managed to become champion as a team owner and driver, which had never really been done before especially beating all the big factory teams at the time before moving into the American open wheel scene of Indycar.
Once the boys from Donut Media got a hold of the story. It was bound to become a hit over on Netflix.
Lanier’s career was skyrocketing once he began to make a name for himself in the sportscar scene. The drugs, alcohol and party lifestyle of being a bad boy race car driver was beginning to go to his head. His ex-wife and best friends were warning him if he makes the move to IndyCar with a blank sponsored race car, the police will catch onto him and that it did. Back in the 80’s they didn’t have social media and Indycar/CART as a sport was big but it wasn’t big enough for him to be caught out when he moved into America’s biggest open wheel scene.
Lanier was a fast driver and all around natural race car driver. If he was in NASCAR bootlegging moonshine when it started, he could’ve driven away from the cops back then. Instead Randy wasn’t dealing with a few kegs worth of alcohol. He was selling and distributing two cargo boat loads of dope to shores all over America whilst trying to qualify for his first ever Indy 500. The team he was racing for was Arciero Racing, the team managed to scrape through the 1985 IndyCar season with Randy Lanier at the helm but only showed a best result of 13th at Laguna Seca, whilst the team failed to qualify for the Indy 500 that same year.
The team he was with was never going to be as big and as dominant as some of the others he was racing against, he also knew in the back of his mind that he had to make the most of the situation he had started. In 1986 his IndyCar run was getting better as he was adapting to the open wheel style of driving as he finished a career best sixth place at the Meadowlands Grand Prix. Lanier had also qualified for the Indy 500 and finished 10th that same year, unfortunately he only managed to race 9 events before the law caught up to him when they had found all the cargo ships with his dope onboard, which had also killed two men in the process after a gas explosion had happened when they opened the cargo load.
Randy Lanier and his business partner Ben Kramer received life without parole, whilst his ex-wife Maggi was also sentenced to nine years in prison for money laundering. He was sentenced to life in prison but in 2014 Lanier was released and moved back in with his ex-wife, Pam, and the two are now planning to marry. He is now a brand ambassador for a medical marijuana company called Cannabis Sativa and planned to race with them as a primary sponsor. A year later he took part in a race at Mid Ohio, driving for Rally Baby Racing, which was covered in-depth by Road & Track magazine.
His new sponsor David Tobias, who’s the CEO of Cannabis Sativa, told the media after the Netflix release, "Cannabis Sativa is also a supporter of Freedom Grow; surveys show that 91% of U.S. adults say that cannabis should be legal medically or recreationally, and fewer than 8% disagree. People have had enough with incarcerating people for the same plant that is widely available via licensed growers, distributors and dispensaries. "Need for Weed" shows one way cannabis got to the masses and the Draconian punishment Randy received. Imagine how Randy must have felt going into a dispensary after serving 27 years in prison for the products he saw on their shelves. This is a story that needs telling".
I could go on and on about this interesting character but, what I suggest is that my fans reading this blog should go and watch this documentary over on Netflix. You won’t regret it, thanks for reading and I’ll catch you next time.
DH
Bad Sport Official Trailer on Netflix