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Speaker 1: You feel good, okay, go ahead and started up. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So this session, as we get all that breaking and

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Speaker 1: uh down shifting done before we enter the corners, we're

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Speaker 1: going back to the power at the apex and as

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Speaker 1: we exit, you'll start squeezing the throttle gently, smoothly at

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Speaker 1: the same time you're unwinding the will Sounds like a plan. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: This is Randy Lanier tracking out, tracking out, tracking out.

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Speaker 1: Twattle Trottle, a former race car driver shift up at

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Speaker 1: five thousand and today an instructor at the Performance Driving

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Speaker 1: Group Racing School in South Florida. He loves everything to

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Speaker 1: do with cars and driving and teaching, so yes, this

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Speaker 1: is his home away from home. He was all the

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Speaker 1: track be closer to the wall velos Born. I'm Amy Driscoll.

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Speaker 1: I'm an editor at the Miami Herald. I'm Alex Harris.

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Speaker 1: I'm a reporter at the Herald. And that's Henry Gilbert,

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Speaker 1: owner of the racing school. If you're a good driver

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Speaker 1: and you're able to pass that on to a student

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Speaker 1: is very gratifying to see a student come from not

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Speaker 1: knowing anything until the end of the day where they

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Speaker 1: actually have become a better driver. You want to be

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Speaker 1: on the flattel right here. But let the call on one.

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Speaker 1: Letok the call on track. Randy's hair is gray now

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Speaker 1: and his walk is sometimes a little stiff. For the

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Speaker 1: last few years he spent his weekends here at Homestead

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Speaker 1: Miami Speedway, a world class track forty five minutes south

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Speaker 1: of Miami's Neon Skyline. To right, Ta sitting in the

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Speaker 1: passenger seat is the latest bend in the road for

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Speaker 1: a sixty four year old who lived a life of

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Speaker 1: high speed and higher risk. Yeah, that's thrown on that

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Speaker 1: slow right right right, right, right, right right, bro, You

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Speaker 1: gotta right before you get to the core. Do people

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Speaker 1: ever specifically asked to be taught by him? Only the

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Speaker 1: people that come back, because most people don't know him

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Speaker 1: saw Randy Lanier. The highest place rookie would be white

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Speaker 1: and father and Randy Lanier's camp. His name Rookie of

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Speaker 1: the Year. Unfortunately for him, this happened thirty years ago,

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Speaker 1: so his name really doesn't mean much unless you were

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Speaker 1: in that era and you know all the history behind them.

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Speaker 1: Yam Car number twelve is Randy Lanier. He will start

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Speaker 1: this race in the center of the second row. He

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Speaker 1: seems like he really really enjoys being here. I think

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Speaker 1: it's an understatement to say that Randy enjoys everything now

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Speaker 1: that he's not behind bars. Beautiful day, great day to

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Speaker 1: be at the race track, because Randy Lanier might also

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Speaker 1: be one of the biggest pot kingpins in American history.

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Speaker 1: Here in Miami, where drug money built everything from banks

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Speaker 1: to condos. We spent the past year exploring Florida's long

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Speaker 1: and complicated history with marijuana. How did we go from

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Speaker 1: Miami vice to a place where you can legally buy

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Speaker 1: pot at a drive through? We interviewed dozens of people,

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Speaker 1: some who have never spoken publicly before we did what

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Speaker 1: we did. It was against the law. Do I agree

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Speaker 1: with law? Absolutely not. What we did examined stacks of

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Speaker 1: records and dug through archives going back forty years to

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Speaker 1: tell the story of a cultural shift and how one

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Speaker 1: man's double life reflected an era. This was the candy store.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you want to see dope, Mr Vice President,

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Speaker 1: You want to see guns? We got plenty of them

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Speaker 1: for you. The story starts with a South Florida racing

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Speaker 1: team bursting onto the scene, led by a guy with

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Speaker 1: a lot to prove and money to burn. A record

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Speaker 1: breaker who would soon go toe to toe with stars

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Speaker 1: like Mario and Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr. And A. J. Foyt.

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Speaker 1: Who is the Blue Thunder Racing Team. Everyone's now wondering

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Speaker 1: who can stop the Blue Thunder Racing Team. Much as

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Speaker 1: Porsche wanted to spend, spend, and yet I had plenty

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Speaker 1: of sponsorship coming right from Colombia. At that time, pot

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Speaker 1: was flowing from South America into the United States by

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Speaker 1: the ton, and Randy was responsible for a whole lot

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Speaker 1: of it. He courted the spotlight on the track well,

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Speaker 1: his other identity depended on him staying out of it.

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Speaker 1: He kept a split second ahead of the competition and

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Speaker 1: one step ahead of the fetes. You get to a

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Speaker 1: point where you feel you're invincible. You've been so lucky

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Speaker 1: for so long. Do you feel you can do anything

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Speaker 1: you want and get away with it? But ultimately his

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Speaker 1: luck ran out, and Randy spent decades of his life

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Speaker 1: in prison. Deep do you want to bury this man,

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Speaker 1: I said, We'll need a plumber the piping sunlight. Today,

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Speaker 1: Florida joins a growing number of states debating marijuana laws

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Speaker 1: and asking important questions about punishment for a plant that

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Speaker 1: is increasingly legal. If I can go to a store

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Speaker 1: and by it, I don't see why anybody should have

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Speaker 1: to lose their freedom because of it. The Miami Herald

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Speaker 1: and mcclashy Studios present a tail of Speed Randy while

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Speaker 1: there a guest the wall weed was the architect of

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Speaker 1: our state's marijuana laws, and those laws need to change,

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Speaker 1: and the road ahead our generations gotted to be on

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Speaker 1: the right. Yes, cornishment was due. He got it. So

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Speaker 1: let's go on, because I can tell you everybody changes,

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Speaker 1: everything changes. This has smoked part one. Mm. How the

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Speaker 1: West was one? Yeah, through several races all across the country,

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Speaker 1: is how they won that championship. At some point through

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Speaker 1: the years, my mom was cleaning out closets and something,

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Speaker 1: getting rid of this junk, and I said, I'll take it.

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Speaker 1: So so that's how I end up like with this

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Speaker 1: jomb It's an April afternoon here outside Denver, and Randy

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Speaker 1: and your's daughter Brandy is showing us around her house.

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Speaker 1: The indiecar t shirt red white in blue with the stars.

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Speaker 1: We're looking at a pile of jackets and shirts in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties style red leather almost looks like Michael Jackson

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Speaker 1: from the Bad Video with my dad's name embroidered on it,

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Speaker 1: very leathern eighties and red with lots of zipper pockets.

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Speaker 1: She has reminders of her dad's racing career throughout her home,

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Speaker 1: including some particular items in our closet camel GT. Champion

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Speaker 1: from the Blue Thunder team, the cartoon camel, which I

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Speaker 1: think is pretty me in pretty retro. So it seems

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Speaker 1: like you're like the unofficial historian for your dad. Probably,

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Speaker 1: I'm just the only one that didn't want to get

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Speaker 1: rid of it all. For years, Brandy has been the

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Speaker 1: keeper of her father's past, which in many ways began

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Speaker 1: in the late seventies with the purchase of a beat

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Speaker 1: up Porsche for about seven thousand dollars and the rest

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Speaker 1: is family lore. He got it used and it was

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Speaker 1: a clunker, and his best friend at the time was

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Speaker 1: his mechanic, and they rewired it with some lamp wires

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Speaker 1: from the house and took it up to West Palm Beach,

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Speaker 1: I believe, and wound up winning their first race with it,

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Speaker 1: and it just kind of took off from there. I

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Speaker 1: think he'll probably tell you he got bit by the bug,

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Speaker 1: got bit by the racing bug. Randy told us that

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Speaker 1: the Speedway that, like a lot of family stories, that's

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Speaker 1: not quite right. When I first bought it, it was

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Speaker 1: wired with lamp wire. We had to rewire the call

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Speaker 1: with proper way, So that's what she was talking about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: from the motor to the proper brakes, the wary We

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Speaker 1: stripped the call and built it from the ground up.

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Speaker 1: But as with everything else about Randy's outside life, the

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Speaker 1: reality is almost as remarkable as the legend one of

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Speaker 1: my very first race over and that got me the

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Speaker 1: racing bug. For Randy, something about racing always just stuck

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Speaker 1: with him. The visit a Halm. Maybe it was the

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Speaker 1: speed man start or the thundering sound of the engines

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Speaker 1: coming through on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway radio network in

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Speaker 1: the seventies. Growing up, I kind of used to listen

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Speaker 1: to the Indianapolis on radio. We think we're viewing the

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Speaker 1: most exciting part of any sporting event in the whole world,

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Speaker 1: the start of the Indianapolis, or just the sheer excitement

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Speaker 1: of winning. Roaring by number set Bobby Yair in first

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Speaker 1: lay over the FIS card over fifty seven by nine.

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Speaker 1: Grandy had overhauled that open cockpit speed stir given it

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Speaker 1: a new red, yellow and orange paint job and cut

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Speaker 1: his racing teeth in the scc A circuit. The sports

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Speaker 1: Car Club of America started racing down here in the

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Speaker 1: Southeastern United States, which is Georgia, the South Kolana, North

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Speaker 1: Kolin of Texas. In Florida, his Porsche became a common

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Speaker 1: sight in the winter Circle and that progressed after one

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Speaker 1: of the Southeastern Championship and amateur racing for in production.

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Speaker 1: It was an impressive start for a total newcomer to

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Speaker 1: the sport, and his name got around, you know, the

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Speaker 1: early eighties, eight two. You know, he was just considered

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Speaker 1: a really really good young driver, somebody who kind of

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Speaker 1: came out of nowhere. But you know, he got in

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Speaker 1: the car wherever he got the money from, he was

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Speaker 1: just past. This is Mike Harris, who spent forty years

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Speaker 1: covering auto racing for the Associated Press. I didn't know

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Speaker 1: him too well myself, but you know I interviewed him

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Speaker 1: a number of times. At any rate. Yeah, he he

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Speaker 1: was kind of there suddenly, and when he got there,

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Speaker 1: he got there big time. Randy's big break came when

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Speaker 1: he drove with the Ferrari team at the twenty four

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Speaker 1: Hours of Daytona. He rode that momentum all the way

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Speaker 1: across the ocean to a whole new class of racing

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Speaker 1: and to some well off track opportunities. Started racing did

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Speaker 1: Lamans with a Ferrari team in two but I started

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Speaker 1: traveling in the up in the seventies. Firsts pleasure and

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Speaker 1: then it became business. Later on a lot of it.

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Speaker 1: An estimated three hundred thousand spectators lining the eight point

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Speaker 1: full seven five mile circuit to see what should be

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Speaker 1: a very exciting Lament twenty four hour race. In the

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Speaker 1: summer of eighty two, Randy arrived in Lama, France with

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Speaker 1: a South Florida powerbroker and racer named Preston Hen. A

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Speaker 1: photo from that trip captures Randy with a bushy mustache,

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Speaker 1: lounging by the side of the famous track with Hen

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Speaker 1: in his trademark cowboy hat Lament twenty four hour Race

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Speaker 1: Who's Now Underway? The car was a bright red Ferrari

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Speaker 1: BB drivers took turns behind the wheel. Randy split time

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Speaker 1: in that race with Hen and another driver, but they

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Speaker 1: ran out of fuel and didn't finish. Still, the unimpressive

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Speaker 1: result wasn't the most memorable part of that race. Instead,

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Speaker 1: Lama offered Randy his first real glimpse of life as

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Speaker 1: a star race car driver. He took one look around

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Speaker 1: and knew he'd found his calling. Randy was developing an

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Speaker 1: appetite for success, and that's how he drove to always

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Speaker 1: hungry for the next big win. He took the next

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Speaker 1: logical step. He jumped from the sec A to IMS,

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Speaker 1: the International Motor Sports Association. It's a different kind of

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Speaker 1: racing than you'd see and say, the which Randy would

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Speaker 1: attempt later in his career MS is sports cars. Here's

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Speaker 1: Harris again. The indy cars are considerably faster, and they're

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Speaker 1: open cockpit cars and open wheel cars, whereas sports cars,

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Speaker 1: many of them are covered. In general, they're a little

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Speaker 1: bit slower than the Indy cars, and they're definitely not

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Speaker 1: as nimble, and IMSA came with a different attitude. INFA

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Speaker 1: blossomed in the eighties into what turned out to be

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Speaker 1: the most competitive, exciting road racing America to ever known,

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Speaker 1: and may still be that today had it stayed on

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Speaker 1: the same course. Jim Busby is a former IMSA driver

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Speaker 1: who raced against Randy back in row number eleven is

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Speaker 1: Jim Busby, who back in one set the race record

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Speaker 1: which still stands along He described the rough and tunnel

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Speaker 1: atmosphere of an IMPS race. Himsel also had a policy

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Speaker 1: that allowed you to race until you look too fast,

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Speaker 1: because that makes any sense, They sort of looked the

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Speaker 1: other way at the regulations. As long as the racing

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Speaker 1: was good. They sort of allowed us to catch up

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Speaker 1: with each other by modifying our cars, and when it

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Speaker 1: appeared that we were all competitive together, they kind of

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Speaker 1: looked the other way. And most of the time in IMS,

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Speaker 1: Randy was behind the wheel of a sleek British built

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Speaker 1: March race car. WPBS and Molder Week illustrated prevent live

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Speaker 1: coverage of the t Daytona and at Daytona in no

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Speaker 1: one was talking about Randy's money yet, but they were

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Speaker 1: talking about his talent. But the big surprise too is

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Speaker 1: the Arch. Randy Lanier has put that March up into

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Speaker 1: second position. Randy spent much of three driving for an

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Speaker 1: IMSA team owned by fellow racer Marty Hines, but the

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Speaker 1: next year changed everything. Randy's racing career began with that

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Speaker 1: Porsche of Speedster, but Blue Thunder was all about the

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Speaker 1: March race car, and it was his Blue Thunder Racing

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Speaker 1: team where Mammoth Ambition met massive wealth that would eventually

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Speaker 1: propel Randy Lanier's name into headlines and history books. And

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Speaker 1: one race kicked it all off. Was a race that

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Speaker 1: finally proved to the world that the Miami Grand Prix

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Speaker 1: was here to stay. That February, racing tycoon Ralph Sanchez

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Speaker 1: held an IMSA road event that sent race cars roaring

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Speaker 1: through the streets of downtown Miami. Randy bought a whole

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Speaker 1: block of seats right on the course so his friends

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Speaker 1: and family could watch him drive. Here's Sanchez. It was

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Speaker 1: a huge success. We had great weather and it was

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Speaker 1: the first year that we had the Spirit of Miami.

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Speaker 1: That Spirit of Miami was a car, a wide bodied

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Speaker 1: March eight three G that Randy had his eye on

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Speaker 1: as the foundation for his team. The car had a

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Speaker 1: distinctive gaping hole between the two front fenders. From the front,

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Speaker 1: it looked like a cross between the Batmobile and a

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Speaker 1: lobster clath. Sunshine and crowds of race fans. Nearly seventy

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Speaker 1: tho fans filled the grandstands near Biscayane Boulevard for the

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Speaker 1: Miami Grand Prix. It appears one of those great moments

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Speaker 1: in motor sports has developed bing. But what the crowd

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Speaker 1: didn't see that day was Randy. The car he drove

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Speaker 1: from Marty Hinz blew its transmission in warmups and never

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Speaker 1: even made it to the starting line was cheap. He

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Speaker 1: got as much as he could for as little as possible. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: actually got bar a toss from other teams. Keith Layton

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Speaker 1: was a mechanic for that team, and he remembers that

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Speaker 1: for Randy, sitting out the race sparked an idea for

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Speaker 1: a team of his own. And when did when did

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Speaker 1: you and Randy first start talking about Blue Thunder? Was

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Speaker 1: it in at that Miami Grand Prix and eighty four?

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Speaker 1: It wasn't earlier? Um, probably the Miami Grand Prix because

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Speaker 1: you know, we'd obviously met and talked, but never talked

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Speaker 1: about having a team, And the frustration of Marty borrowing tires.

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Speaker 1: The gearbox was whatever you could find put in it,

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Speaker 1: no note, So we needed to do something properly. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you could see the potential if you did it properly.

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Speaker 1: They saw the potential in one particular car, that spirit

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Speaker 1: of Miami driven by famous racer Emerson Fittipaldi in the

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Speaker 1: eight four Grand Prix, and with that car is the cornerstone.

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Speaker 1: Randy took his racing career into his own hands. He

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Speaker 1: reached into his mysteriously flushed wallet and bankrolled the brand

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Speaker 1: new team. So basically, there's a car available. I think

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Speaker 1: we've got a car, an engine, and some spares, and

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Speaker 1: then we work. That was bluth Under Racing. He partnered

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Speaker 1: with Whittington brothers Bill, Don and Dale from South Florida,

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Speaker 1: who had reputations as hard charging drivers with their own

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Speaker 1: shadowy income source. The three Addington brothers suddenly showed up

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Speaker 1: and we're going real fast. Before Randy got there, Mike

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Speaker 1: Harress again, everybody just no figure. They had a lot

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Speaker 1: to do with the cars with the March chassis, but

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Speaker 1: those guys were fearless and Randy was fearless. Then Randy

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Speaker 1: hired Layton to do a lot. Well. I played everything.

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Speaker 1: I was team managers, the engineer, welder, chief mechanic, truck

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Speaker 1: driver at times because we didn't have a truck driver,

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Speaker 1: so I can drive a truck. They painted the car white,

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Speaker 1: black and blue. They added a giant number fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: a nod to Randy's first Porsche race car on the

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Speaker 1: air intaken the doors. The number was trimmed in gold,

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Speaker 1: the real stuff. So I had a sign writer that

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Speaker 1: was close to the race shop. We were working from

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Speaker 1: his old school. He said, anything to use is gold

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Speaker 1: leaf if you say so. So the next thing you know,

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Speaker 1: he's got these packets of gold. He said, the only

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Speaker 1: one is twenty four carrots to anyone that's soft and pliable.

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Speaker 1: So we made our race deacounts with gold leaf through

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Speaker 1: gold leaf. And then we get the new transporter and

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Speaker 1: we want to have Blue Thunder racing on each side

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Speaker 1: of the transporter. So I think it was twelve ft

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Speaker 1: or something that Blue Thunder on each side, and it

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Speaker 1: will probably eight thousand each side in gold alone on

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Speaker 1: the trailer. In a strange case of art imitating life,

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Speaker 1: that Blue Thunder race car would end up in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the action again two years later, this time

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Speaker 1: on Miami Vice. It was a very Miami cameo on

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Speaker 1: a TV show that fictionalized the battle between cops and

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Speaker 1: drug smugglers. The episode aired in February of six, about

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Speaker 1: nine months before the High Wire Act of Randy's life

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Speaker 1: would come crashing down like something out of the show itself.

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Speaker 1: But before Miami Vice, Randy was still using that car

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Speaker 1: to make his name in racing. One month after that

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Speaker 1: non starter in Miami, Randy's new team rolled into se

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Speaker 1: Bring International Raceway in Florida for the twelve Hours of

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Speaker 1: Sea Bring. It was their first race and they finished second.

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Speaker 1: You've heard the expression of a little bulldog or something

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Speaker 1: grabbing the hold of your trouser leg um on let go. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's the definition of Randy. And some of the racing

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Speaker 1: was like that because he would be racing with Derek

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Speaker 1: Bell l Holbert, a lot more qualified, experienced, and he

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Speaker 1: would still stay in there. He was still keep fighting,

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Speaker 1: keep fighting you instead of letting them go, keep going

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Speaker 1: after them, and that inevitace would make a mistake because

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Speaker 1: like where's this going? They became fun to watch as well.

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Speaker 1: Next up was Road Atlanta. Randy missed that race for

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Speaker 1: reasons that become important later in this story, and those

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Speaker 1: reasons would actually make him more famous in the end,

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00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:10,080
Speaker 1: were more infamous. But in his absence, Don Whittington drove

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Speaker 1: Blue Thunder to the team's first win. Three weeks later,

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Speaker 1: Blue Thunder arrived at Riverside International Raceway outside l A

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Speaker 1: with two cars, another March, and a guy who was

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Speaker 1: maturing today as a driver was Randy Lannaire. He has

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Speaker 1: moved that normally asked for the Chevrolet March into the

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Speaker 1: third spot. Randy shared driving duties with Bill Whittington, and

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Speaker 1: the Nashville Network broadcast the action. Bill Whittington, his co

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Speaker 1: driver on the wall, has had to be very pleased

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Speaker 1: with this young man's broadcrest. I mean, he owns a car,

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Speaker 1: he can drive it if he wants to. And in

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Speaker 1: a thrilling finish Blue Thunder one again wire they come.

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Speaker 1: Couldn't have made it any closer than that. Randy, let

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Speaker 1: me get you first. Kind of tense. At the end

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Speaker 1: of touch, it was like waiting for a baby post

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Speaker 1: excited rights will six out up saying because river Side

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Speaker 1: as a race we should never have won hot on

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Speaker 1: the track and off it. The Blue underteam was living

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Speaker 1: a high octane life, so we're terrorists with the rental

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Speaker 1: cars as well. Yeah, I don't think a race car

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Speaker 1: driver with a rental car is a good combo. So

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever heard of bricking a

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Speaker 1: car now you've put a brick on the frontle pedal

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Speaker 1: to hold it wide open. So so we we went around.

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Speaker 1: We had bets all the different team members how long

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Speaker 1: this engine would run just flat out, So we had,

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Speaker 1: you know, four minutes, five minutes, twenty minutes. So we

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Speaker 1: just left it running flat out and two minutes it

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Speaker 1: ran four before it blew up. And then he set

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Speaker 1: everything on fire, actually on the grass. So next thing

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Speaker 1: you know, we've got the whole hillside on fire. The

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Speaker 1: victories they were stacking up made the team feel unstoppable.

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Speaker 1: You know, winning is a calf this that feeds on everybody,

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter if the truck driver, the gopher in the team,

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Speaker 1: everybody gets a new high. And so if you can

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Speaker 1: keep that going from race to race to race, you

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Speaker 1: know you're walking into the parade. For instance, we're going

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Speaker 1: to kick their ass this weekend. If you had to

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Speaker 1: pick one race that defines blue thunders, mete work rise

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Speaker 1: and just how far black market money could take them,

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Speaker 1: it would be Watkins Glen in New York. By then,

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Speaker 1: Randy's only real competition for the championship came from Derek

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Speaker 1: Bell of the Porsche of Factory team A lot of

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Speaker 1: guys in sports car racing at that time. There's endurance racing,

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Speaker 1: or we've got to make it to the finish, so

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Speaker 1: we're going to go to this pace. Here's late and again.

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Speaker 1: So they set their pace pretty conservative. We weren't. We

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Speaker 1: were ten tents every lap. We had to go to

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Speaker 1: that speed to beat Porsche. I mean, the factory Porsche

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Speaker 1: car is a lot at a car than what we had, really,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we had just nothing. I mean, when you

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Speaker 1: look at Porsche, Germany had maybe thirty engineers their race meetings,

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Speaker 1: the whole flock of Germans. We had just a small

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Speaker 1: bunch of guys and a Mark Chevy. It was that Davidlath,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't happen nowadays. Randy pushed the pace at Walkins

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Speaker 1: Glenn and two thirds of the way through the race

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Speaker 1: the suspension broke on Bell's car. Randy and Dale Whittington

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Speaker 1: cruised to the checkered flag and they're at the podium.

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Speaker 1: Days after Randy's thirtieth birthday, the Blue Thunder team was

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Speaker 1: chugging champagne from Magnum and toasting their season title. At

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Speaker 1: the time, it didn't really think about it because it

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Speaker 1: was so busy doing it. You know a lot of

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Speaker 1: people spend a year getting their act together and when

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Speaker 1: we get this, we'll do this. When we do this

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Speaker 1: with there was none of that. We didn't dream it,

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Speaker 1: we did it. In hindsight, it might be obvious, but

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Speaker 1: nothing about Blue Thunder success came cheap. From the cars,

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Speaker 1: to the crew, to the maintenance and travel. Operating a

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Speaker 1: race team is staggeringly expensive. That's why race cars usually

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Speaker 1: have sponsors logos from end to end, helping offset the costs.

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Speaker 1: I think at one point we would have a budget

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Speaker 1: about five or six million bucks a year, and we

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00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 1: would finance back through tire company and some guys cigarettes,

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Speaker 1: and on and on and on. This is Jim Buzby again,

390
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:40,120
Speaker 1: the ms A racer who competed against Blue Thunder. We

391
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 1: were a company that did it legitimately from start to finish.

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Speaker 1: Racing became a runaway of the big budget teams. Yet

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Speaker 1: there was Randy winning the four season title. And as

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Speaker 1: remarkable as that was, racing writer Mike Harris says another

395
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:02,000
Speaker 1: thing stood out blue on His cars were conspicuously bare

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00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: except for those twenty four current gold decals and the

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Speaker 1: logo of a Miami power boat company. Called Apache imps

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Speaker 1: is a rich persons sports sports car drivers are generally

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00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 1: gentleman racers, you know, with lots of cash on hand.

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Speaker 1: And uh, people like the Whittington brothers and Randy were

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00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: suddenly there and suddenly going very fast and getting a

402
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: lot of notoriety, and uh, you know, there was some

403
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: talk about where their money came from, but nothing that

404
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: you could tend down and write a story about and say,

405
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:35,199
Speaker 1: this is happening in the Apache sticker. It signified a

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00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: different kind of partnership. So who were your sponsors? The

407
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: Apache power boats? Ben Ben obviously was part of the

408
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Speaker 1: big program. I never saw any money come from Apache

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Speaker 1: power boats. I mean I had a patchy nice I

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00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: had all those done in gold leaf as well, which

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Speaker 1: Ben paid me for because he wanted them on his

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Speaker 1: boats as well. But mostly it was Attache. Yeah, Apache

413
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: was the name, but it was basically a part of

414
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 1: the imagination. Nobody talked about it, nobody ever asked, but

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00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,959
Speaker 1: you know who knows what they thought. I mean, if

416
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 1: you've got to worry about what people are thinking, you're

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00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 1: not getting on with your job. When someone asked Randy

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00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: how we financed the team, he had an answer the

419
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: cover job was well, I started some jet ski rentals

420
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Speaker 1: into seventies, and at one time I had about three

421
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,919
Speaker 1: of those places. Then they were doing fairly decent, but

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00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: not on the scale when I was doing so. Some

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00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 1: of it was from jet ski rentals, boat rentals, stuff

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Speaker 1: like that. I'm sure to racing community had plenty of suspicions, absolutely,

425
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: and when Randy's cars pulled into the pits, there was

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00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: an unavoidable conclusion. Blue Thunder had tons of funding coming

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Speaker 1: from someplace, and they weren't talking about where I had

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Speaker 1: some sponsors. As Tom started going by my viewpoint at

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Speaker 1: the time was didn't added to me. I just wanted

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Speaker 1: to dry. That's all I wanted to do. I didn't

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00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:09,479
Speaker 1: need him. Look, I had plenty of sponsorship coming right

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Speaker 1: from Columbia. All right. I'm Amy Driscoll, I'm Alex Harris.

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Speaker 1: This podcast is produced by Kara Tabor and Davin Coburn

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00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: and McClatchy Studios and The Herald's Emily Michow and Matthias Ackner,

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00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: And thanks to Christine Dimtte at w l r N

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00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: Studios for lots more on this story, including a video

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00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: of Randy Lanier talking about his racing career. Go to

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Speaker 1: Miami Herald dot com slash smoked. To continue supporting this

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00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: kind of work, consider a digital subscription to the Miami Herald.

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00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: Visit Miami Herald dot com slash subscribe for more information,

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00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 1: leave us a rating and a review on Apple podcasts,

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00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: and on part two of Smoked, go inside the secret

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Speaker 1: multimillion dollar operation that the Feds called the Company. I

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00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: started smoking pot when I was fourteen years old. I

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00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: thought I was a hole about for a while. Back

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00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: in them days, all of his friends were hippie looking.

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00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: I dressed in a suit and tide. So there came

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00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: a time when he needed to rent house stash house,

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00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: and of course what better than a guy a suit

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00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 1: and guy to go do that. America's public enemy Number

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00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 1: one is drug abuse. A lot of the bills will

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Speaker 1: pay with cash. I would be given ten tho dollars

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Speaker 1: to go and pay everybody the size loads we were getting.

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Speaker 1: We would take the whole mountain sides. Yes, h