Being a racer takes a certain kind of person.
The willingness to take calculated risks is what separates the “decent” from the truly
great.
That willingness is also a key personality trait in smugglers.
Racers and Smugglers have a lot in common, and Psychology can prove it.
According to a study done by the New York Times, some of the main traits that determine
how successful a racer can be are: Dominance, Self Sufficiency, and Relaxation.
A racer needs to be assertive, both when driving and off the track.
If a driver is unsure how their car is performing, they can’t relay that to the mechanics “Honestly,
what the F*** are we doing here?”
Being Self-sufficient is also a critical racing skill.
A driver might have an entire team behind them relaying car information and strategy
calls, but when shit hits the fan, the driver will be forced to make tough calls on their
own.
The same is required of you when you’re running contraband.
If you’re fleeing the cops, you won’t succeed if you can’t think on your feet.
It’s also crucial for a driver to keep their head when the heat is on.
Racing isn’t a very chill activity.Taking turns at 100 miles an hour with cars all around
you isn’t for people who panic.
American racing legend Bobby Rahal once said that ''Emotion is the enemy of the race car
driver.”
Like racing, smuggling also requires that you keep your emotions under control.
“Say Hello to my little friend!”
One final trait mentioned in the racing study was shyness.
It doesn’t have much to do with driving, but a lot of professional racers are shy people
and naturally introverted, which you can tell by watching old Kimi Raikkonen interviews.
“Just leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.”
Looking at the two groups and their traits side by side, you might think that Smugglers
would make great racing drivers.
And you’d be right.
Randy Lanier was the 1986 Indy 500 rookie of the year.
Before the race, Randy’s name was pretty obscure, He’d only been racing since he
was 25.
But according to his driving instructor, Lanier was one of the most talented drivers he had
ever seen.
At age 30 Randy bought two race cars and started his own team, and began beating factory teams,
despite the fact that he didn’t have any big sponsors.
And that’s because Randy was paying for racing with drug money.
“I like weed, and sometimes when my friends need weed I hook ‘em up.”
Randy grew up near Fort Lauderdale and started selling weed as a teen.
He eventually made enough money to buy a 27 foot powerboat and started smuggling pot from
the Bahamas back to Florida.
It was easy money, and he was good at it.
His empire quickly grew from one man to an operation that sprawled the entire US, and
included a fleet of speed boats and a barge modified to carry over 100 tons of Marijuana.
It’s estimated that Randy made over 68 million dollars, and used the money to buy vacation
houses and collect a fleet of exotic cars.
His life was basically a Rick Ross song.
BOUGHT A FLEET OF CA-
But the authorities had caught on to Randy’s drug running ways.
Randy left his glitzy racer lifestyle and fled to Antigua, where he was soon arrested
at gunpoint.
It’s possible that Randy was so good at both racing and smuggling because he saw the
similarities between the two.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine he remarked on how alike smuggling and racing
are.
Quote : "You're hitting your lines, hitting your apexes – you're in the zone."
I don’t think the comparison is that surprising.
The worlds of racing and smuggling are high stakes and high stress.
I don’t want to glorify what Randy did but pulling off those huge jobs must have felt
pretty awesome, like winning a race.
In Randy’s case racing and smuggling were separate activities.
But what if someone combined the two?
Vic Lee Motorsport was a top British Touring Car Championship team in the early nineties.
And like Randy Lanier, the Vic Lee team did this all without factory support.
The team did a lot of testing outside of the UK particularly in the Zandvoort circuit in
Holland.
They did so much testing in fact, that the cops started to get suspicious.
Why was a British team going to the Netherlands to test so often?
The answer was lots and lots of cocaine.
Turns out the Vic Lee Racing team was using their race hauler as a drug barge.
British police stopped the trailer on it’s way back from Holland.
In a secret compartment was nearly 40 kilos of coke.
“So much coke, That’s a lot of coke”
I think the reality of racing is that it attracts people who are willing to take risks.
And nothing demonstrates this better than the inception of America’s top racing series.
The 18th amendment made the production and sale of liquor illegal in the United States.
People started smuggling homemade moonshine in the back of their cars, even going so far
as to modify them to make the job easier.
They put stiffer suspension in the rear, They took out the rear seats to hold more product,
and they put bigger engines under the hood so they could outrun the cops.
The moonshine runners were basically building race cars, and it didn’t take long for them
to start pitting their custom builds against each other in unofficial contests.
Even after prohibition ended, they were still racing their cars, but a guy named Bill France
wanted some organization.
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was founded in December of 1947.NASCAR
was built from smuggling.
Racers aren’t more likely to be criminals than any other athlete, obviously.
Drug smuggling is often portrayed as a victimless crime, something that Robin Hood-like figures
do.
Because of this, it’s not hard to glamorize it and neither is racing.
Racers and smugglers alike become folk heroes.
And when you’re someone who does both, you almost get elevated to another level.
As if someone like that could only exist in a movie.
But they don’t, these did it for real.
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Have you ever smuggled anything?
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If you liked this episode of WheelHouse check out this episode of Up to Speed on the DeLorean.
Check out this episode of Science Garage, it’s all about turbocharging and it’s
awesome.
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