IMSA The Randy Lanier Story

[GTRMagic]

Article Here

An amazing and colourful life being led during the 1980s... Until the house of cards came tumbling down..

Originally Posted by The Article

Some even referred to IMSA as the International Marijuana Smugglers Association.

[vincegail]

It is also the first time I read that the 1979 Le Mans winners had been paying for their win with the profits of drug smuggling!!!

[fieldodreams79]

Lanier’s daughter, Brandie, now 34 years old, was living in Colorado on January 1, 2014, the day marijuana was legalized for recreational use in that state.Ironically, she recalls, her father had spent 25 years in various federal prisons for pretty much doing what hundreds of so-called “marijuana millionaires” were preparing to do — sell pot to the masses.

In fact, he owned a team that included John Paul Sr., a Harvard grad turned racecar-driving marijuana smuggler. Paul would later be convicted of shooting an informant in the chest and was sentenced to 13 years for attempted murder in 1986.

It’s just a shame that the Reagan drug war locked up so many men for marijuana for such a long time,” he says. “I think it’s cruel and unusual punishment to give people life sentences for marijuana. Doesn’t matter to me how much marijuana — it’s a plant. And people are serving life sentences and dying in prison for a plant.

You know, this war on drugs is funded by tobacco and alcohol commissions.
It's not what drugs you're strung out on they care about so much as whose. -
Todd Snider

All that said, Randy was an entrepreneur and a motorsports enthusiast that chose his own path knowing the repercussions who paid a heavy price for his actions. Hope it was worth it to him.

Knew most of the high points about Randy, but not some of these details. Good read.

[mountainstar]

He was well aware of the penalties and repercussions for his crimes and he just enjoyed spending huge sums of money. Imagine if he had applied the same work ethic to legitimate business and motorsport?

[joeb]

Quite the good read, and brought back a lot of memories of the IMSA grid in the 80's.

[Starfish Primer]

It won´t be the first and the last time that criminals decide to spend their money in sport, not only motorsport.

[jasonjessica09]

Originally Posted by Starfish Primer

It won´t be the first and the last time that criminals decide to spend their money in sport, not only motorsport.

Although with Level 5/Tucker gone I can't think of any shady operations running at this point in time.

[jasonjessica09]

The John Paul Sr case looks even crazier. He disappeared in 2001. We don't know if he is dead now or not. Very tough nowadays to complete fall off the grid like that. Maybe he enjoyed the rest of his days hiding in europe or some pacific island.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by jasonjessica09

Although with Level 5/Tucker gone I can't think of any shady operations running at this point in time.

In recent IMSA news, we had Tucker, Field, Loles. Did I miss anyone?

[GTRMagic]

First Race Back

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

First Race Back

Read that a couple of days ago - really enjoyed it.

[Lanky Turtle]

There's a video interview with him on Jalopnik that I found entertaining also. He's pretty open about his "business" from back in the day. It's sort of funny that his car had the Apache boats sponsorship, which were basically high performance speedboats built to outrun anything on water, particularly the authorities. It reminds me of the 80's version of moonshine bootleggers from the 40's.

[JoeF]

Apache Powerboats was on the cars cause Ben Kramer (Meyer Lansky's great nephew) owned Apache Powerboats and was Randy's main partner. There is a book from the 80's called "Blue Thunder" which ties Kramer to the murder of offshore racing king Don Aronow which is now basically been proved.