RANDY MEYER
the same thing with the racing deal. My brother
had a little roadster and I drove that a little bit. I
started out with a little front-motor dragster, then
my Top Alcohol Dragster, then Top Fuel, then I
took a small break from racing all the time, then
we came back to do this A/Fuel deal. I’m not the
type of guy who likes to jump around from class
to class. I like to find something that’s challenging,
and this class is definitely challenging.
A lot of people don’t really understand this,
but I tell people that there’s one person out there
who’s made me better today than I was a few
years ago, and that’s Norm Grimes. He set the
bar pretty high. When you look up to a guy like
that, it’s like, “OK, it can be done.” Everybody has
I was first approached in 2002 by Gary Ormsby
Jr. He had a local sponsor in Kansas City, but
he didn’t have a car and he didn’t want to mess
with having a car and team. They came to me and
asked, so we ended up putting a deal together.
That’s when I thought, this is really a good deal
for everybody. It gives the driver what they want
to do, which is to advertise their company in the
racing world, and it allows me to have an influx
of cash so I can buy better, nicer parts. That’s
where that deal started.
(Alan) Bradshaw, he ran a full season, which
worked out really well. We ended up with a world
championship with that. Then I went back to
driving since I didn’t have anybody else. If I don’t
20 times more in the long run. Now we can put
new parts in and keep good parts going all the
time. We take our parts and sell them to some of
the smaller teams that can’t afford new stuff. We
have real good components that still have good
life in them and we can cycle them through to
those guys and help them out as well.
The five drivers you’re working with this
year are all under 30 years old. What
have you learned while working with those
younger drivers and helping them develop
their talent?
Because I have my two daughters and I come
from a big family with a lot of brothers and sisters,
“We’ve been able to take people that were pretty green and
just nurture them and teach them the way I want things
done and to do it my way.”
all these excuses. But he’s made me a better racer
and a smarter racer today than what I used to
be when I used to run with Bill Reichert and all
the guys. Things have changed, and he’s the guy
I think that’s made everybody step their game
up a little bit.
The rent-a-ride program has become more
popular in Top Alcohol Dragster over the
last few years, but you’ve been doing that
for quite some time. How did you get started
renting out your car to other drivers and
developing that program?
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have anybody tomorrow then I’ll jump back in the
car and drive since we have a good program. But
at this point, we’re very fortunate because we have
some people on the waiting list that want to drive.
From your standpoint, what are the benefits
of a program like this?
It’s allowed us to have nicer stuff and better parts
because when you’re paying for it with your own
dollar every day and you worked hard for it, some-
times we would be like most racers and we would
run parts longer than we should’ve, then you
end up blowing the motor up and it costs you
I’m used to working together with people and
working with family. With Julie, we tease her all
the time and call her my third daughter.
But the thing I like about the younger people is,
two things: one is I built my cars for lightweight
drivers, so when I drive that’s why it doesn’t work
as well because I’m a little heavier than these
drivers. It just works better with smaller, light-
er people.
But they’re young enough that most of them
that come to me haven’t had bad habits from
somebody else teaching them or not teaching
them at all how to drive. We’ve been able to take
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