The Dale Jr. Download - 393 - Randy Lanier (Part Two): On The Run

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

What do you get when you combine a drug smuggling enterprise straight out of an episode of Miami Vice with the high-dollar sports car racing world of the 1980s? You get the story of Randy Lanier, and on this week’s episode he joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis to tell it.At one time a top prospect in American motorsports, Lanier made headlines when he was indicted in 1986 for operating a multi-million dollar drug distribution effort responsible for bringing over 300 tons of marijuana to the United States from Columbia. Just a handful of months before he was Rookie of the Year in the 70th running of the Indianapolis 500.Originally born in rural Lynchburg, Virginia, Lanier and his family of seven moved to Hollywood, Florida when he was 13. The sunny beach lifestyle was captivating for young Randy, and was soon introduced to the thriving marijuana subculture of the 1960s. His father, who worked as a draftsman, was concerned about his seemingly wayward lifestyle and got him a job in construction. But, due to his longhaired appearance, fellow construction workers began asking Randy if he knew where to buy marijuana, and his stint in drug dealing began.Randy shares a frightening story of getting robbed at gun-point during a sale, which temporarily took him away from Florida to Colorado. It was there he met a guru, who invited him to an ashram in Boulder where he learned the art of meditation, which proved to be a big part of his survival in prison as well as a cornerstone of his life today. Upon returning to Florida, Randy continued on his new path until tragically losing his brother Glen in a motorcycle accident. The event was catastrophic for the Lanier family, and Randy explains it spun him out, back into the familiarity of selling marijuana. While he may not have realized it at the time, Lanier’s eventual career in motorsports was implanted in the back of his mind, thanks in part to listening to the Indianapolis 500 broadcast on the radio when he was a young boy at his family farm in Virginia. Randy recalls a story from the late 1970s when he was attending a car show at the Miami Beach Convention Center and noticed a SCCA-sponsored booth. He picked up a pamphlet and eventually made the call to inquire about becoming a licensed driver. Soon after, he purchased his first race car: a 1957 Porsche 256. After renting out a small warehouse to be his shop and preparing the car for racing action, he entered his first amateur contest at West Palm Beach Speedway in 1980. As legend would have it, he won. From there he rapidly progressed through the sports car ranks, arriving at the headlining IMSA GT circuit. After spending a few seasons in borrowed rides with minimal results, he decided to take matters into his own hands and form his own racing team. But, to win on a consistent basis required a large bank roll, and so the two roads of Lanier’s life intersected. At this point, he had some experience with off-shore drug smuggling. At age 19 he used some of his dealing profits to purchase a 27-foot speed boat, initially intended to be a frivolous expenditure for thrill-seeking. He soon began traveling to the Bahamas to bring in loads of marijuana from awaiting motherships. In order to fund his newly formed Blue Thunder Racing team, Lanier expanded from speed boats to fishing boats, then tug boats and finally a full-on barge. The results were instant, and in 1984 he won the IMSA Championship. The next year, he took on CART racing with the intention of heading to Indianapolis. The transition proved difficult, and although he had a successful debut in 1986 in the 500, a devastating crash at Michigan a few weeks later effectively ended his racing career. As it turns out, his drug smuggling efforts caught up with him and soon after he was indicted. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. My 27 years in the joint, seven of them was in solitary confinement. And here goes, Randy Lanier, the points leader in this MSA endurance series, a guy who has progressed so much. You've basically fund that operation with smuggling. 100% from weed money.

When I go to prison, and who comes to prison? John Paul Sr. walking a yard every day. We went through a riot together. You being on the run for a total of how long? All of nine months. Nine months you were on the run. It's a very emotional guy, Steve Evans.

Boy, he just gets in that automobile. I'm a chess player. You'll always have an escape player. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Dale Jr. Download episode 393 in the Bojangles studio. Your host, Dale Jr. with my co-host, Mike, the last time. They heard from us. Everybody was enjoying a Randy Lanier interview. And there's so much to Randy that we decided to cut this into two parts

because we just wanted to be able to get to the whole story, right? There's so many. I mean, Randy's flying from out of state, and there are so many things that I wanted to ask him. I wanted to be able to get to all of it while we had him. And so we're thankful for the opportunity to have that much time with him. Where we left off, he was waiting on a shipment in San Francisco. It was supposed to be in New Orleans.

He's about to tell us all about that. Plus his life on the run for nine months, and then his prison sentence, part two, is going to be amazing. So thank you to Ally for bringing us the opportunity to have a Randy Lanier Part 2. And Randy is eager to get to the rest of the story. And so are we. So let's go. San Francisco.

So that was the boat that you diverted through the, the Panama Canal. Am I right? That one was the boat through the canal. Okay. Because you had that boat going to Louisiana. Yep. And you got suspicion that... Someone told me that they were watching, they was waiting.

They were following me. They know my load is coming in. And so how do you... How are they not just going to go... How are they not going to go, wait, this boat is turning and now going this way? That's the boat. They didn't have Homeland security. Pretty. All of them satellites.

So they could not track a boat like that like they can today. There's no tracking. So you were able to divert. Actually, that's too good of a story just to gloss over. So basically, here's what happens. You get suspicion that the government knows about your barge. FBI. The FBI, and that they are in New Orleans waiting for it to arrive.

They're searching barges for three months. Is this your last, is this literally like you're done? I'm done. Son all again. Yeah. And so how... Is it hard to get it through the Panama Canal? No.

No? It went right on through it. Right through there. Yeah. There's no big checkpoints or anything there, right? Yeah, it's just go through the channel locks. How long does it take to divert something from New Orleans to... It took six months.

And what does that do in terms of a wrinkle in the operation? It had me paranoid as can be. For six months. Six months. Six months. And I'm being followed by the FBI, the DEA. Where you are, wherever you're going. Yeah, I'm in Florida, and I'm trying to race at the same time.

I had found out in April that I'm being watched by the FBI, and my load was 10 days off shore, so I turned it around. I got Indianapolis 500 coming up in May, and Indies big. Yeah. Indies a big deal. How could you drive a race car or focus on anything? thing with that on your mind? Well, one thing about it, as you know, when you're strapped in a car.

But even, you know, I would have been like a basket case. I'm good. I'm good in the car once I'm driving racing. My energy is being focused on what I'm doing. But then when a yellow comes, you start thinking about the load going to San Francisco. I talk about it in the book. All right. When the load comes, like somebody crashes,

and now you got, you know, yellow laps where, you know, you can scrub your tires off and get ready, but your brain just sends your messages, and you can't be having that in a race car. No, yeah. So you were dealing with that. I was dealing with that. Because when Gary, the FBI got to him in his house in 81, right?

He runs a Daytona 500, comes home four days later. They're at his door. in the middle of the night. And he bails himself out and continues to race, right? And he goes through his whole trial process racing. He wins the ASA championship, knowing he's going to jail. Yeah, that's right. And he's got a report.

He's going to turn himself in. He's supposed to go to jail. He wins a championship, goes to the banquet, celebrates his championship, and the next day he drives up to turn himself in. Oh, boy. So, I mean, when I talk to you, knowing that you're going, knowing what you have going on, you've got to barge with a hundred, sixty-five thousand, sixty-five thousand pounds of wheat, 165,000 pounds floating through the ocean headed to San Francisco while you're trying to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. I just don't know how you, I don't know how you can do those things without getting physical ulcers and, or like, without just literally losing your mind. how did you not just go insane?

It would have been, I mean, most people put in that situation, it would have been obvious to anyone that knew them that, damn, dude, something ain't right about you, something's going on, what is it? What's wrong with? If you asked my wife, she would say something ain't right, would you? She knew? Look, I would be at restaurants and I'd, staring off in the middle of distance.

I tell her, oh, I think these people, FBI over here, they're watching me. You know, you're paranoid. You got to stop. I bet. I bet that was pretty rough. Yeah, it was rough. And, you know, what's crazy is where we put our attention, our energy follows. And so when you're racing, I'm trying to put all my attention and focus on what I'm doing at hand.

And then when I'm off, I'm trying to reestablish my attention on getting what I need to get done right. without anybody getting in trouble. You run into Indy 500. You finish 10th. Rookie of the race. What year was this? 1986. 86.

Yeah. You had a kind of a tough career though in Indy. Yeah. Like Indy didn't go as well as into it. No. Why? Indy didn't go. Indy cars.

Didn't go well. Why? Didn't go. Hoping from sports cars to open wheel cars with the different weight ratio and the horsepower. Just complex. of different elements. It took me a while. I had never driven open-wheel cars before.

So it was a learning curve for me. Big difference. Started doing better. I made a really bad decision. In my first year of doing Indy cars, I went to Europe, and I went to the Lola factory and the March factory. And I couldn't make a decision

which chassis I wanted. So I bought two of each. I bought two Lolas and two marches. Wrong. I'd go test tracks, testing, and I'd drive the march from, let's say, the morning to lunch. And then from lunch to the afternoon, I'd drive to Lola.

It was too much data. I was, it was overload. It was bad decision. So my first year was just, we didn't have good results. The following year, in 86. I didn't race Indy in 85. Almost. I tried to, but I had a run in with a marshal there, with a chief steward. What happened?

I'm out on the back straight away. It was the rookies. And I'm out on the back straight away. At the time, I'm running a little over 200 mile an hour. The yellow light comes on. No one's in front of me. I got an empty track. I look behind me in my mirror. No one's behind me. So I stayed on the throttle. because we had set out purposely to get the very first pit coming off a turn four

because I get good tire tire temps. I'm trying to get good tire temps so I can tell what my chassis is doing. So you're going to just run hard to the pits? I ran hard all the way through to the end of the track, and then I got down on the apron. I'm trying to get the hottest tire temps I can get. Right. If you slow down on the back straightaway,

and by the time you get to your pit, your temps aren't worth even reading. You're trying to run hard, pit road, get down pit road. Nobody's in front of me. So I stay on the throttle until I have to get off and get down on the apron and come into my first pit stop. My pit where we are. I'm there. I'm waiting for a sign to go back out. Chief Stewart comes over.

Tells me get out the car. So I get out the car. And he calls me over to the other side of the wall. and he tells me he threw the yellow lights why didn't I back out the throttle I said well nobody was in front of me and nobody was behind me

what the fuck does it matter excuse me he looks at me he said well you know what you got a lot more learning to do I want you to pack your bags you're out of here damn I said what

I guess I just respected him and I got a little lippy you know maybe I was too full of myself I apologized to him. Didn't do no good. I went and got AJ. I got Tom Sneaver. And they were in my corner, but then he wasn't hearing it.

I was, I guess, I got a badmouthed him a little bit. I said some stuff I shouldn't have said. Tried to retract it. But once it comes out, it's too late. So I left Indy. That's in 1985. And I said, all right, I went and got a former Atlantic car, open wheel car. At the moment I told you, I haven't been driving no open wheel car.

So I went to two races in a formal Atlantic. The second race I won. The first one, I finished seventh. So you're getting some experience? I'm getting some experience. I said, all right, I'm coming back. All right. Yeah.

So what happens between your final IndyCar race or 86 seasons going through? You run Indy 500, all right? You and the group decided y'all are going to, you know, take off, disappear, and change your identities. Am I right? Well, my, I decided about me. I had been, I was under an investigation. You knew it. Knew it.

Yep. And so I had a group of lawyers, and I sent them to speak with the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney's Office. What were you hoping they were going to? I'm trying to negotiate a deal. Oh. All right. So my, I wanted to cut a deal to where I could do maybe five or ten years, pay them X amount of money and be done with it. And how was that received?

That wasn't received very good. They wanted, unfortunately, it was in Southern Illinois. If had it been in Florida, I could have probably cut a deal, calls Bill, my buddy, my partner. He'd just cut a deal. He gave him, I think, $7 million. dollars and he got a 15 year sentence he only did i think five years bill whittington yeah okay so he did cut a deal yeah he cut a deal got it yeah and dawn too they got don got 18 months for money laundering okay right because they had cut a deal the year prior i knew it's capable with the justice department so i went in and all from 10 million dollars and um a 10 year sentence they said no We want 18 years.

We want complete forfeiture and complete cooperation. Damn. So I said, no, I tell you what I'll do. I'll give you complete forfeiture, everything I've made, and I'll give you 20 years. They won at 18. I shot up with 20. This is months into talking now.

Months going by. They said, no. It's now going to 22 years. They wanted you. Because they want you to basically sing. Complete cooperation. And they want names. They want names.

And I was at the mom frame that we shook hands when we started this operation that, you know, we don't tell on nobody. That's just how we was brought up. And when a handshake is me is better than a contract. And I was kind of living by what I had agreed upon. And I stuck to it. I couldn't work out anything with the government. as far as they was hell bent on complete cooperation. So I fled.

So when you, is the story that you went into the diner and saw the, uh, your home being, uh, invaded on television? Yeah. Is that true?

Yeah, that's true. So you were in a diner going to visit your wife because she's in the hospital. My son, yeah. What's this? The sad part is we, we had twins coming.

Really? We had, my, my wife was pregnant with twins. And we lost one of the boys. So my son was born January 21st And without his brother We lost his brother

Well too much stress Yeah So we lost the one twin He was born And seven days later I was indicted So was it January 21st When you're in the diner

And you see that your Home is being invaded No it was Uh 7th January 28th Okay Seven days after he was born I was

She had some complications And she had to stay in the hospital longer than what we ever thought and I was out on bail on another case I had gotten indicted back in November of 1985 or 1986 for a some shrimp boats that some people was smuggling that I they put me involved in this smuggling operation I really wasn't involved I was really kind of innocent on that case so When you fled, had you been prepared to flee? Had you had a, like a, you had a plan?

A flea plan. A fleet plan. A fleet plan. Right. And so what is the plan? What do you do? I'm a chess player. So you always have.

You were already ahead. You always have an escape plan. So what did you do? You walk out of the diner. Where did you go? I went back, packed my bags, got in my car, and drove to a stash house in the middle of Florida. nobody hardly knows about, you know, hidden property on 15 acres or something. I stayed there until I grew my beard and my...

You stayed there for weeks? Yeah, yeah, a little over a month. Okay. Yeah. And then I went to, from there, I went to New York City to where I had an apartment. Bus plane? A tractor trailer drove me, and I stayed in the... You drove and you rode in a tractor trailer all right in New York.

I rode into sleeper compartment. Yeah. I didn't want to be seen. I was so scared, and that's the paranoia. Yeah. I was afraid that a toll booth person might, because it's all on the news. If you're a sports fan,

you might have seen something on ESPN. Gotcha. So you go to New York to an apartment? Well, first I go to Pennsylvania to a stash house. And from there, I organized a realtor that I know to get me an apartment. I already had an apartment in New York, but too many people knew about it.

So it took me about a month to locate another on apartment. Wait, so an apartment in New York? Yeah. How long did you stay there? He didn't. I stayed there for, I don't know, a couple of months maybe to finalize some stuff that I was going in because I had just brought that load in. You're still working. I'm collecting.

Yeah, right. Right. You're still running your operation. Yeah, I still had about five mill out to me. So then where did you go from New York? From there, I flew over to Geneva. I had a British passport. Hey, Dirty Mo Media fans, I have exciting news for you.

Next week, Dirty Mo Media will be releasing its newest original series, Roots and Revival. Roots and Revival is a six-part YouTube series on Dale Jr.'s return to late model racing at North Wilkesboro Speedway, a beloved racetrack that despite two decades of dormancy and abandonment has found new life. Subscribe to Dirty Mo Media's YouTube channel now and never miss any of Dirty Mo Media's content. Back up just a second. What does your wife know? You're now on the run.

You just had a son. You already have a daughter. Yeah, seven years old. How much do they know what you're doing right now? You had to play playing. They know exactly. They know what I'm doing. Not my daughter, but my...

Yeah, but your wife did. My wife does. So she knew and did you communicate with her at all? Yeah. I gave her a list of pay phones that she could go to. Okay. And I would give her a date each time I'd call her when to be another pay phone. I couldn't trust the pay phones.

So I had to have, once you use a pay phone, it was over. Never go back to that pay phone because they'd have a tap on it. Are the feds talking to her? Are the feds trying to get her to? Sure, they, yeah. As a matter of fact, they came into her and told her they was going. going to indict her because I had a car collection and they wanted my car collection. So I call her one time on the pay phone from Switzerland and she said that, you know, they said they know about

the car collection and if I don't give it to them, you know, they're going to indict me. So I said, all right, tell them you're going to have a, you're going to, I'm going to give you a telephone number and I want you to call this lawyer in about a week and he'll have the keys to a warehouse. And and they address to a warehouse where all my cars are. And they can have it. They can have all my cars. But I pulled out a couple. Which ones do you pull out?

I pulled out a BB 512 Ferrari. Where is it today? It was in 1982 Ferrari. When I told you, I went to Lamont in 82. When I come back, I bought a BB 512. Where is that car today? Do you know? It got robbed.

Someone stole it. It's gone. Good. Heavens. So I gave it to a friend that told them, hey, just hang on to it. Just hang on to it. And this guy's not involved. So back to your flea plan, you flew to Geneva?

I flew to Geneva, Switzerland. Okay. Now pick up there. How long did you stay in Switzerland? About nine months. Doing what? A lot of banking. Huh?

A lot of banking. Banking? Yeah. Banking. What does that mean? I've been storing money over there for years. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm moving accounts. You're moving accounts? I'm withdrawing moving accounts. Right, yeah. Trying to save your money. Trying to save my money. It meant something to me, I guess.

Yeah. And so, did you get accomplished what you were trying to accomplish with that? Yeah, it was a lot going on. I had a built a casino in 1985. You what? I built a casino in 1985. Gardena, California. Oh, my God.

But of course. So I was trying to sell the casino. So that was a part of the... Oh, yeah, you're just trying to offload? I'm trying to sell. sell the casino, get the funds that I needed to get from there. I'm not worried about no more paychecks that used to come to these. When we built a casino, all I had was the money sent to Geneva.

I never even collected the money. It just showed up in accounts, right? So I was trying to sell the casino. I'm trying to move some accounts that Charles had known about. See, I never used to deposit the money. I used to have people do it for me, right? So the people that knew about my lawyers and portfolio managers, I wanted to get it out of their possession

and get it into something that no one knew about but me. Got you. Right. And then I also trying to get my, trying to sell the casino. So that took months and months. Yeah. Right.

You're scrambling trying to get all your money away from everything that it might be tied to. To anybody that knew about anything. Yeah. And had Charles revealed his, Charles wasn't a rat yet He wasn't because that happens when he has a testify, right? Doing all this time That I'm in Geneva

He gets pinched at a driver's license Trying to get a fake ID And he cooperates like right away And did you suspect that he would do that? I had a feeling that if If he gets pinched He's not going to hold up Yeah

What gave you that feeling? His personality it's correct you know your intuition tells you about people you know I understand that now I mean like after just that one hour one and a half hour documentary

you know Alan doesn't seem like a guy that's ever going to break but not everybody's in Allen no you know yeah so where where do you go from Switzerland I guess why sorry why you're in Switzerland are you

are you still like man somebody's following me you still feel You still feel like everywhere you go, you're like freaking out. Being on the lamb is not. I would never advise that for anybody. There's no sense of relief. It's no life you want to live. Because you're constantly thinking someone recognizing you, a hotel, a manager,

wherever, a coffee house, a restaurant. Being on the lamb is not all it's supposed to be or nothing. I didn't like it at all. So where'd you go from Switzerland? I had a house down in Antigua with a boat, a vessel, down to my house in Antigua. And I had this grand plan. The more I think about it, it was ridiculous. But I had just plan.

Let's hear it. So the plan was go to Antigua. I had a crew down now. And I had a boat captain. I had two boat captains down there. One was a legal boat captain. And the other one was a smuggling boat captain that was also indicted. So he was hiding out at my house.

house in Antigua. Nobody knew about this house but me and the two boat captains. So I go to Antigua and I got a 60-foot custom hatteras that I guess I got attached to. I had bought it, new. I gutted it and customized it with all kinds of fancy stuff inside the boat from snake skin the dining area all snake skin and just I customized this boat and it was like ridiculous

but we never do it again so my plan was when I was in Geneva I hired a French crew at a brokerage company a boat chartering boat company to meet my vessel in Venezuela

they were supposed to meet this vessel so I go to Antigua and I was going to tell my captains to take the boat to Venezuela to just certain marina and just leave the boat. That's all they know. They don't know who's meeting compartmentalization. You got it? So all they was told is they're going to go to a marina and drop the boat off. But I went out on my boat that when I arrived, they said, well, let's go fishing and diving. I like to get lobsters and conch and stuff. How long have you been at the house at this point? I was only supposed to stay one day.

I stayed for five days. I only stayed the house about two days and then I went out on the boat for five days. So I was a week there. You were there a week. Yeah, I was only going to be one day. Why? Why was that there for a week? Why were you going to be there just one day? Where were you going after that?

Back to Geneva. Okay. I wanted to get back to Europe. Your plan was to stay in Switzerland. No. I was going to probably go down to New Zealand. Eventually. Yeah, they got some racing down there.

Your new life was going to be. That was your new life. I was thinking about going to racing and New Zealand would some kind of cause. go race and live in New Zealand and assume a completely new life yep that was the plan so you went to Antigua on this this house is it on an island with other is there other houses on the island this house was at the top of the rainforest on a mountain that uh over it used to be a sugar cane plantation and now it was a pineapple plantation okay it was a cool house it was um the driveway was all over quarter mile up there up this mountain and it was like

all old cannons overlooking the bay. As you drive up, it was like all these cannons from wreck ships. And as you drive up to this house, you come up into the big, there's a big greenhouse for all the botanical plants. The house was surrounded by botanical gardens. But in front of the house, I had like a half of a shipwreck sailboat with a big 90-foot mask mask with a crow's nest out front where you could climb up on the front of my.

on the top and funny it out oh it was cool had a big wraparound veranda so staying there staying there was not safe like to stay in there was kind of safe i thought it was but unbeknownst to me months earlier i had said i was in switzerland for nine months but i had taken out about three months earlier i had met pam my wife and the kids and an island called st martin that's where my dad and trice went on their honeymoon so so so I had my, had Pam and my little boy, my newborn boy, he's like several months old, and my daughter, who's seven years old, I wanted to see him. I was missing them.

I was dying. I wanted to see him. So I had them go a roundabout way to different islands and eventually get to St. Martin. And so I arrived in St. Martin three months prior, and it's got a Dutch side where the casinos are and a French side where all the nice beaches are and good restaurants. I got my boat docked

at the French side of the island. And that night, one night, I said, I had been playing tennis with Pam and my daughter was chasing. We just having fun. And one day I'm playing tennis and I go up to the restaurant on top of this mountain.

The tennis court is where I'm at. It's like at a top of it. this little mountain with a restaurant overlooking the tennis court. I go up inside the restaurant to order something and I tell Pam, I think that guy's watching me. I got a feeling he's looking at me. She's, oh, man, come on. No one knows you here, blah, blah. She don't believe me.

You know, I said, I think he's watching me. Well, I go back that night and I go from the French side to the Dutch side. I want to go play casino, Gamble. In the middle of the night, something comes out about 4 o'clock in the morning. I want to leave the island. I'm paranoid. So I go, she's sleeping on the boat. I wake everybody, hey, we're leaving.

Get us off, untied off the dock. We're going to St. Barts, which is not far away. So we go over to the motor over to St. Barts. Well, when I come back, I give my instructions. Take the boat. I want you to pull the boat out of the water here, sandblast the bottom, paint the bottom, get all the barnacles off, and then take the boat to this marina in Venezuela.

So my message was not delivered. I go to Geneva. for three more months. Well, they don't tell me, when I call Antigar and tell them I'm coming, they don't tell me, hey, when we came back from St. Bartz, we got pulled up by St. Martin Police, and they question us.

They didn't tell me. But now when I fly to Antigua, the people that I told you I thought was watching me at St. Martin, one of my distributors, his lawyer had hired a private investigator, to try to find my vessel. And that private investigator was the guy that was in that bar that day. He called the FBI and said, I've located Randy Lanier.

He's in St. Martin. They had my crew hemmed up. I had already left the island until they missed me. By the time the FBI got there, they just missed me. But nobody told me I go to Antigar, and now two agents for the last year has been flying the island looking for me, and they found my boat. the day that I was on it, and they arrested me coming into the harbor.

When you're on your boat, you see the plane flying over? That's the plane. You jump on a skiff run into the, you know. Oh, yeah, so that morning I'm getting lobsters and conk. I'm going to have a conk salad and some lobster salad for lunch. We pull up anchor. I had seen a plane land on a grassy runway, and my captain said, oh, they'd just probably tourist.

Well, it was two FBI agents. So I pull anchor that day, going to go have lunch at Antigua, and as I pull into the harbor called Falmouth Harbor, there's like a big cliff on one side of the inlet, and it's a reef over here, and I pull into the bay. It's a big bay full of sailboats, and as I get in, I'm looking at the docks, and I don't see nobody, and I thought,

there's nobody on the docks. Must be okay, but there ain't nobody there. And as I pivoted around, I see a 90-foot PT boat. It's gray. It's like a Navy boat. And I said, no, what do you think they're doing? They said, they might ask for our paperwork. So I said, no, my instinct told me, I don't feel good.

Pivot this boat around, let's go out to the ocean. And as we pivoted the boat around, the big PT boat came and blocked the inland. Now I'm stuck in the bay. So I unleashed my, I got a winch on the bow of the boat with a dinghy. We put the dinghy in the water. I get in the dinghy and I go to part of the bay. I go around a bunch of sailboats. I tie up.

I get off and I'm on a dirt road and I'm going to go back to my dingy. But as I walked back down the dock, that PT boat had launched that dinghy and there's four guys with rifles pointing them at me. So I said, oh, they're here for me, for sure. So now I take off running down the dirt road. Where are you going to go?

I'm trying to get as far away from these people as I can. Were you like they're going to hide somewhere in the bush or what? No, I'm thinking if I can get over south of this mountain, there's a deserted beach on the other side of this island. Maybe my thoughts are I can hide out until I can get back to where my, I got some cash and passports at my house. Maybe I can sneak back to the house. This is my thinking. But as I'm running down the dirt road, I'm like got no shoes. I'm just got a pair of baggies on, no shirt, and he comes a dust storm.

And it's coming, and I'm going, oh, there's jeeps. It's the local people on the Antiguan police, and they end up chasing me up a hill, and they capture me there. Damn. Off to the joint I go. That was it. They put you right on the plane? No.

They take me and put me on the island, and the police department in the island overnight. They lock me in like a closet. They put me in a closet. with no light. I stayed there all night, and then the next day, they tell me they're kicking me off as undesirable. They don't want me on that island. I'm thinking, oh, man.

What have I done? Great. This is good. Yeah, this is, I'm going to get another shot. And so they take me to the airport the next day, me and my boat captained. You ain't seen the FBI guys yet. Ain't seen FBI yet. Oh, that's right.

Right. That's right. Well, no, when they captured me, they brought me back to my boat, and I seen two agents standing there with aviator glasses, and I knew they were FBI. Sure. So I knew something, the FBI is here. But then they told me they kicked me off the island,

because I kept telling, I got a local attorney there. I tell him, please call this attorney. He's friends with the president of the island. They wouldn't let me call him. So when they tell me they kick me off the island, they're going to take me and fly me to St. Martin. So I'm waiting in a room. They got me handcuffed and shone.

shackled, and then I hear the flight, Antigua to St. Martin. I'm going, man, I'm really going to St. Martin because they tell me, okay, this is your flight. So I walk out on the tarmac. I walk up the steps, handcuffed and shackled, and as soon as I get up to the top of the American airline, those two agents I saw at the boat, flashed the FBI card. We're FBI agents. This is considered American soil. You're now under arrest. They put me into the seat of the plane The captain gets on the radio

And tells the passengers Ladies and gentlemen This flight is being diverted It's no longer going to St. Martin We are flying from Antigua to Puerto Rico And any passenger that does not disembark We'll get a free round-trip Destination ticket to any place we fly

Nobody got off that plane Everybody stayed And I said Oh they was lying And, you know, they fooled me. Yeah. And so off to Puerto Rico, I go to the FBI headquarters there and arrest me and put me in Puerto Rico in prison for a couple of weeks.

So. And that was a trip in Puerto Rico. That ends you being on the run for a total of how long? All of nine months. Nine months, you were on the run. Yeah, from January to October. What are the emotions that you're, once you sit down in that seat, what's the emotions that you go through i'm certain there's probably several and i mean you talked

about not being not enjoying being on the run yeah so some relief but at the same time some fear of just what's this mean for me yeah so a lot of times we make decisions on fear based without even knowing it you know i'm thinking i'm going to puerto rico i still got a chance to maybe get myself out of the situation i'm optimist Mystic. Oh, you haven't given up? No, I haven't given up. I never gave up.

Yeah. So I get booked in just old Puerto Rico prison, and they had just come off of a riot. They'd killed a couple of guards, a couple of inmates, and they'd just come out of lockdown. And it was all gang, the whole prison was gang run by Yeneta. It's a Puerto Rico game. And I don't speak Spanish. So while we get there, I see an amazing thing.

When we pull into the Sally Port, I see him dragging this guy, and he looks dead. It's a guy in an orange jumpsuit, but he's unconscious, bleeding. He's got hematomas all over his head. He's beat up. He looks dead, and I see him dragging him by their armpits across in front of the bus that I'm on. And I tell him a boat captain, man, the district attorney told me to wave extradition and come here because we'll just be here for a minute and then be extradited but this is one of the most dangerous prisons in the world

so I told him a bokeam, man that lawyer won't bullshit we ain't even got out got here and we're seeing guys being dragged looked like they're dead so they dress us out they take us and put us on the across the yard and we find a place to sleep and there's 200 and probably 60 people

in this prison with bids for 60 It's no place to sleep, no bunks, no sales. I end up sleeping on the floor in a place where I found a place and no one was sleeping there because it was in front of this guy, what they called the number two guy. Nobody wants to stay in front of his cell because he's a shot caller. And the next morning, real early, I felt a bunch of shadows over me. And I look up and there's like three or four big muscle guys,

and they got the day's newspaper. and I'm on the front page ex-smuggler, race car driver captured Puerto Rico, and they're going, this you? The guy said, yeah, that's me. They said, the number two guy wants to meet you.

So that's the sale that I'm sleeping in front of. Yeah. And I go in there and he tells me who he is and he's doing 35 years, blah, blah, blah. And it gave me hope that, you know what, I might be able to get out of this prison. I was only there for two weeks and they came in a guy tell you.

What do you want to see? The number two guy was, first thing he says, asked me if I smoke weed. I said, yes, I do. He got out underneath his bunk or tray and twisted it up a joint. The big unifier. Wait, in terms of quality, was it good weed?

Nah, not like what I had. And so that was one thing I was curious about is you did 27 years of prison. How did you? stay neutral. How did you stay independent? How did you stay independent? Because that's my... You get to choose?

It just seems, though, in some scenarios, you don't get to choose. People press people in there. But for whatever reasons, I was blessed because one, I had a life sentence. People respect that. Two, I didn't cooperate.

Three, I was a race car driver who, some of these people are sports fans. They wanted to hear Yeah So they respected that So I got major respect And by the end of my 27 years

Things completely changed Because the shot callers Would come to me And ask me for advice Because I try to be sensible You know Voice of Reason Reason for what

I'm saying you were a voice of reason A voice of reason You were a great place To get a non-biased opinion If you come to me and tell me Hey You're from North Carolina and your boy over here has been gambling and he owes 60 bucks to the poker table and we're

ready to beat him down. You know, you got to go talk to him and tell him pay his bills or we're going to stab him or beat him down. So things like that, you know, maybe somebody didn't pay their bill at the store, meaning there's a bunch of people that run store, two for one. You come in and get a soup, you owe two soups. You know, that's it. Where do you get the two soups from?

From the commissary. Okay. From the commissary. I got you. So people buy commissary, they stack it in their locker and they run a little illegal store out of this prison sale. I got you. So if people don't have money, they'll get stuff on credit.

So that wasn't just in Shawshank Redemption. That's really happening. There's a store, like a retail situation going on? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of creativity. So, respect goes a long ways in that society, but the society is not. like anything you can imagine that life should be. It's not good. Now, you said you never gave up. I guess you always had hope. Always had hope. How do you rectify that when one, you have a life sentence and two, you said you got put in solitary confinement for two years, which is, is that not solely there to break you?

So I spent seven years in solitary confinement out of 27. The majority of the time was for investigation of escape. I got two dirty urins for smoking weed. That was 30 days stints. That's nothing. Were you trying to find, were you like trying to find ways out? Yes. Yes.

Had you concocted some pretty good plans, you felt? Whenever I go to a prison, I'd keep it to myself, and I would look for ways to I thought I could. With some ingenuity, I could come up with an idea of how I could get myself out. And it gave me ways to... Something to do. Something to do. Not that I was going to do it.

I mean, if I thought I could make it happen, I would. But it's like... What else you're going to think about? Kept my mind busy. But in some of the plotting and planning, I'd come up with ideas. But then you have to maybe involve somebody. And next thing you know, if you got somebody involved, So you would get trouble.

That's how you'd find out. You would get punishment for even considering or even thinking or even planning an escape. So what happens if, let's say someone owes you some money, say $80 for whatever. You've given them something, you've loaned them some money or some stamps. And if they don't want to pay you the back, they might write a letter. we call it a kite to the lieutenant's office that you're trying to escape. So they don't have to pay you because you get locked up. They're just stalling off the inevitable though, right?

Because I mean, you're not going to be locked up forever. Yeah, that's right. And the hell's coming with you once you get out. On a lot of times, well, a lot of times you don't know who wrote the kite. Oh. They don't tell you who wrote the kite. Yeah, but you have an idea. You know, you might have an idea.

Yeah. But on an escape plot, if you get locked up for an investigative, of escape and they don't get to the bottom of it, they'll ship you to another prison. So I've been to Leavenworth, I've been to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Florence, Colorado, all these are U.S. penitentiaries, Turrhoote, Indiana, Atlanta, Georgia, Coleman, Florida. That's about it. I'm glad you brought that up, though. How do you establish the credibility and the respect when you're being shipped off to all those

different prisons with, I mean, it seems like to me that it resets the deck, right? I mean, every prison has a, what did you call them, a number, the number two or the shot call them. Every prison's got one and they've got their own set of politics, I would assume. Yeah. And yet, you, it seemed like in 27 years you would have, you know, issues with that or maybe somebody just wants to make an example out of you. But you were able to establish at least respect in every one of those? Yeah, my last nine years, I was a volunteer suicide companion. And that means I sat with inmates that tried to take their own life. I'd set with them for four hours a day and talk to them.

Some of them didn't want to talk. But some of them did, and some of them shared things that they would never share with the psychologist or anybody from their childhood trauma. It's sad stories. So for nine years, my last nine years, I did that. and everybody respected me for doing that. I became a yoga instructor in a maximum security prison. That don't happen too often.

Yeah. So, and the big, tough gang guys, they kind of want to be little a year for, I said, okay, you're tough guy. I get that. Come down to my yoga class. I'll break you off, all right, because I'm doing power yoga. You know, I'm... Did they do that? Some of them did.

Some of them did, and I'd break them off. You know, they're not used to doing them static exercises. What do you mean break them off? What does that mean? Meaning that they can't hang. Because you got them doing some stretch that they can't do? Not stretch. Static exercises, planks and stuff.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You got real buff built in prison. I was a big runner. Your physique completely changed. Big runner, thousands of push-ups. I do a thousand push-ups in 45 minutes. Damn, what?

Lots of push-ups. A lot of pull-ups. I was a pull-up guy that, Being little and lightweight. Yeah. It could do a lot of pull-ups. The return to North Wilkesboro is something you're not going to want to miss.

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at racingamerica. That's racingamerica.com. That's racingamerica. Pursicing an event ticket or pay-per-view on Racing America directly supports North Wilkesboro and its revival efforts. You talked about going to Supreme Court. Went to the Supreme Court? How many times? Four times.

I didn't go. Your case? I filed for the Supreme Court. Got you. Right. And so let me, I guess what I'm learning is that even during all of this, you never lost hope. No. Never. And so you were going to continue to try to find a way to be released from prison. You were going to try to find a way that you weren't going to serve this life term. You never gave up on that. And so take me to take me to that moment when you really started getting some genuine hope that this was really possible that you might be able to get out. It's amazing how we draw to us people.

You mentioned your wife is into the law of traction. I want to just give you a little tip on that of my perspective. And you hear about laws of attraction. Our thoughts go out in the universe and we draw back what we put out. My opinion, it's not your thoughts that draw it back. It's your emotions, not the thoughts. It's your emotions. and you see a lot of people that are in domestic violence.

And I mentored when I came out out for five years, I worked in substance abuse treatment industry, mentoring a lot of Afghanistan veterans that had post-traumatic stress disorder, a lot of alcohol problems, a lot of opioid problems. And one of the things is, and I say I don't believe in coincidences, things happen to put me in a spot to where I can help these people, these Afghanistan veterans that I worked with for five years.

after I got my release. I'm still mentoring them today. I speak to them all the time with friends. So my last few years, I had about 24 years in, and I get a letter, a big manila envelope, and in it is photos of these women in front of the White House, and they're marijuana advocates. They don't believe anybody should be locked up for this plant.

And I'm looking at the, I go to my cell, and I pull these pictures out, and these women has got my picture on a stick on front of the White House asking President Obama to release me because I'm a nonviolent cannabis prisoner. They got pictures of them in California at events with my poster advertising to release Randy Lanier. I'm going, who are these beautiful women advocating for me?

And they're Amy Pobal and Stephanie Lander. Stephanie's now 76 years old. In her 60s, she had got approved to grow marijuana, cultivate in California, and she accepted it and started a grow operation, approved. The federal government came in and raided her and gave her five years. And she did her time. She came out, and she started Freedom Grow. That's why you see me wearing this shirt.

I bring light to a dark sale, Freedom Grow. So now they're advocating for me. These people I've never met. So I'm thinking it gives me hope. You know what? Now, about the same time, this happens, President Obama gives a directive to the Justice Department to look at all the nonviolent cannabis prisoners that are serving long, lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent crimes.

I fall into that category. This is like a perfect storm is happening. Now, at the same time, at this time, a little bit earlier, I had gotten a motion from the U.S. Justice Department, an U.S. attorney that they're going to file a motion extending my forfeiture. I owe $60 million still. They seized up close to $150 million. I still owe them $60. So now one of my co-defendants that got it on the barge, he files a motion.

for discovery. I took my stuff and watered up through it in a trash can. I said, they're naked blood from a tunnel. I'm good. I'm sorry. Motion for discovery. A motion for discovery is evidence. You got to show, I'm asking the government to show me why you're filing for, they filed a motion to extend my forfeiture for 20 more years, meaning anything I'm connected with, they could seize for 40 years. It's never had to. happened before. I'm the first. Wow. So my code defendant is that he became a jailhouse lawyer. So he files a motion for discovery from the government. Show us your evidence to prove you have a right to seize our stuff for 40 years. Okay. Now I high lawyers, forfeiture lawyers. You did. Yeah.

Yeah. And we're trying to negotiate with this deal that we know about now. And we file a motion for time served with the U.S. Justice Department, and they didn't fight it. And in 2014, I went to a court hearing on the phone and the prison, and they didn't fight the motion about time served. We filed a motion to time served that dropped the life sentence, and I walked out to prison 30 days later, a free man. Let me ask you this question. All right. When you, are you going to that hearing, knowing the potential is there for you to be released? Yep. And when you hear that you're released and you know, why do you have to be there 30 more days?

So I've heard this before with people that do get released. They're not turned out the door right away. So why? The judge orders the Justice Department to release me within 30 days. They could have released me that night or the next day, but they raised, they used all 30 days. Why? That's just how they roll. Because they can.

As they can. Okay. And so what are you doing for those 30 days? Those 30 days is... Is that the longest 30 days of the 27 years? That was the longest 30 days I'm thinking, oh my God. Freedom's coming. I got my wife now, my ex-wife.

We both got divorced. My wife's my ex-wife. My kids now were seven days old. Who was a twin. He's 27 now. Whoa. My daughter's now 35. I come out of October to 14th.

My son is 27 and he's got a girlfriend. I come out October the 14th, 2014. On October the 13th, 2015, my son's girlfriend has twins. Yeah. So now I'm a grandfather of two twin, six-year-olds. Isn't that something? Yeah. It's amazing.

Look, it's a blessing because, man, now I'm watching these kids go up. She's got them today. She had them last night. I spent the night at the house. Did they? Yeah. So you and Pam got divorced. How far into your prison sentence?

Did that happen? That happened before I went to prison. Before you went to prison. When I fled, I had her, I asked her to divorce me. Y'all did it. She didn't want to. She didn't want to. I had a divorce.

and I quit claim deed the house. My thinking is if you file for the divorce and I give you this house and property, you'll have a place and a home for the children. They can't take it, right? They can't take it. So you got divorced to try to protect her. Yep. Okay, so while you're in prison, she's coming to visit you, the kids are visiting you.

Was that pretty steady throughout the 27 years? Yeah, the kids visited me throughout my... The entire time. Sometimes we'd go a year, maybe a little longer because we couldn't afford it. Yeah. It was two years at the most. I couldn't go. It was hard for me to go without seeing my kids, man.

But the effort stayed consistent. Oh, yeah. All right. How did you maintain, how do you maintain that relationship? Like that? I mean, there's love and there's. Yeah. So there's a lot of phone calls.

Yeah. A lot of phone calls. My son now, I talk to him about. working out there at a young age throughout the about I'd write him about how to work out and how to do things I'm a big workout guy a lot of writing a lot of he's a workout guy he miss he hits the gym every day he's like you know something rubbed off on him in a good way so y'all had a common bond more or less that was developed that let you all be able to connect yeah and it transcended any resentment any frustration anger disappointment y'all broke you all were able to

work through all that? Well, on my part it has. If he's got some resentment and stuff, when I first come out, a little bit of it showed, you know, as a father's son, you know, he's a grown man trying to do his life. And if some tight situations come up, that I didn't agree about, well, where were you? Right. It's a fair argument, right? You know? So that's the choices I made, and I made the wrong choices. I don't want you to make the wrong choices. Yeah. So when you are released, one of the best things, one of the best parts about

this story to me is that you and Pam, you and Pam, are still together. Yeah, we got remarried back in November last year. So, all right. So have you ever asked her why that, what it is that keeps her, have you ever asked her that? Why she's hanging around with me? Why she's still there? Because we're just so comfortable together, I guess. You just made for each other? Yeah. You never asked that though? I didn't ask her why she's just hanging out with me for so long. Well, did she ever harbor any resentment or need to forgive you on anything? It would be fair to be feel that way. We've talked about that. She's forgiving me and she loves me and we're moving on.

And we're just so blessed to have the family back together. Family means a lot. Where are you in terms of your relationship with motorsports? Motorsports. I love motorsports. I go to races when I can as a fan. Just went to 80500 for my first time since I drived. That was your first time? Since 1986. This year?

Yep. Where were you at the track? Where'd you watch the race? I stayed up at the Holman Suite. How about that? In the Holman Suite? Yeah, yeah. I got invited there. And I got to tell you, you know Doug. Yeah, Doug Boles.

Love Doug. Love that family. I met them there. I got much respect for them. I had really good talk with them. Of course, when I left the racing community, I was like the black sheep of the family. From a lot of well-known drivers saying I was bad for the sport or whatever.

But now I went up for Legends Day. You've been embraced. The fans were so good. Look, fans are one, they're like family. They really are wonderful. And I signed autographs on Legends Day. I'll be back next year, looking forward to it and looking forward to the whole atmosphere. But for several years after I got out and released, I was a high-performance driving instructor.

I know. So tell me about that. So that was quite well. I was driving in a Corvette PDG Performance Driving Group, Corvette School. in Florida, Daytona, Sebring, and Homestead. Why did you stop? And, well, we had a little difference of personality, and I had been asked to do some brand ambassador work for a cannabis company,

a public traded company that's on the stock exchange. And it's a market that I know quite well. Like I told you, I've been burning it for 52 years. And you still smoke wheat? I smoke weed. I smoke weed every day. Have you today? No, not today.

Not today. We're still young. Right after we finish this, oh, yeah. I keep it real. But yes, I will smoke after I leave here. But usually I smoke before I eat breakfast. It helps my stomach a lot. But anyway, how did a difference being that I got back involved with cannabis?

And this is a sad part. The propaganda that's been put on this plant for generations is unwarranted. It's unnecessary. And for whatever reasons, it came over generation after generation, and it still exists because we still have people incarcerated when 38 states, it's legal in some form and fashion, but yet there's people that sold 50 pounds, it's got six years in prison. But yet there's a corporation here, several of them that I know,

that sell thousands of pounds a week. They make $300 million every quarter, every quarter. And they're selling thousands of pounds, the same thing that these people are doing, but on a much smaller scale. But the corporations and the big players are allowed to do it. But yet these people that are just trying to put bread on the table for their family in a smaller bit has to go and be incarcerated for years. It makes no sense to me.

Didn't Biden campaign on this, not to turn this into politics, But didn't he campaigned it to do something about that? Yes, Biden campaigned that nobody for marijuana should be in prison when states are selling it legally, and he was going to release them. But it hasn't yet happened. That has not happened. That's why I go to events asking, I got letters at these events for freedom grow.org

to sign these letters asking President Biden to release the nonviolent cannabis prisoners. So if you haven't checked out freedomgloat.org, please check us out. You know, the one thing that we glossed over, and for good reason, there were some things to talk about, but is his championship in the EMSA in 1984, is that one of the most unprecedented racing stories that you can think of being that he was an independent racer beating factory supported teams and some of the best known EMSA drivers in the world? I mean, you went in there and did that. I can't think of more of an underdog story than that one. Once people find out, no, you know, the Randy Lanier story, I can't think of another example that compares to that. We're really, your intentions are really from here,

and you want to win races, and everybody that's in the team wants to win races, but for whatever reason, it was meant to happen because we were racing against the Porsche factory, the Jaguar factory, the Ford was throwing it at it. They brought in the best hot shoes they could find. Klaus Lugwe, great factory driver, fast, super fast and um

Derek Bell Aaron Holbert the Porsche team factories these guys are all A drivers absolutely from the best man how do you explain it and well one thing about it is I was a fortunate enough to have the funding and as you know to run a top level

race team if you don't have the funding you're not going to be competing at that level because it takes testing it takes R&D and I was able to hit the racetracks, do some R&D, do some testing. And when we roll off the track, we was fast right off the get-go from all the testing that we've done. So what's Pam doing today? Pam just gave back the boys to my son a little while ago and she went to work.

She's a assistant director to a substance abuse treatment facility. That's right. She worked in that for while you were in prison, I think. Right. Yeah, yeah. what kind of what is everybody I mean we've heard from you but like what's Pam and Alan and everybody's response to the the Netflix documentary what one thing have you all done I guess would that be it that got the most response then you know the

Netflix show yeah the Netflix show has been quite accepted and watched yeah tens of millions of people so yeah so y'all that's pretty good yeah so is that comfortable for Pam and Alan and them to because they're living, they're just normal people, right? And now to be sort to have their story known and like hey, aren't you? You know, when you go somewhere, hey, you're that

person, right? Do they, are everybody kind of tripping out a little bit over that? No, they're comfortable with it. It's not that big I don't think they've been notice it, but the book, this. Yeah. This is amazing because

as I was writing the book, My attorney was telling me, you know, you're not a published writer. Don't expect to get an advancement. Maybe you want to self-publish it, all this stuff. Well, I got an advancement. Then, about three months ago, I inked a deal for this to be a full feature film. Oh, yeah. Nice.

So it's coming to the big screen. I'm just, like, stoked about it. That would be a hell movie. Yeah, I just want to tell you, right now, 176 of these are going to the federal prisons. And I'm giving them all to the prisoners that we support. And a portion of the proceeds, I'll go to freedom grow.org.

Very good. Where can people find this book? So this book's at Amazon.com. It's ready to be delivered today. And it's at Bonoble. Are you doing any autograph signings or anything like that? I haven't anything signed yet. But I will, yeah, I'm looking into doing some book signing at some Bonds and Nobles.

But I went to one the other day in my Fort Lauderdale and go, oh, well, we stopped book signing because of COVID. Oh, that's right. So that's a little issue right now. I haven't been able to. Sure. But I will be doing some. Backing up to Dells question real quick, I was curious. Most, I would assume that, like, Chuck or Allen or Pam, when you guys watch the Netflix thing for the first time, you don't know what the others have said at that point, right?

I never was involved with anybody's interview. I had no idea what the interview said. They asked me when we did Netflix, they didn't want me around to influence anybody. So I never knew what questions would be asked. I never knew what would questions be asked with me, all questions asked with them. So what was the response from yourself?

I know you can speak best for you, but like when you're hearing Chuck talk about, I mean, he was prevalent in that thing. He's all through it because he was your banker or he was your money guy. Did anything surprise you? Did anything anger you about what Chuck might have said or anybody, for that matter? Because you didn't know until you watched it for the first time. I didn't really get surprised by anything.

He kind of came out of the closet. I knew that he was gay. When I was in the joint, I had heard about it. I didn't know he was gay when he worked for me. And it's all good. That's the lifestyle he wants to choose. So that was new information. What about his,

what about his remorse? Right. What about how, how, I thought, I felt his, you know, he was quite genuinely. Yeah, I feel, I feel, yeah, I feel that he's sincere. Yeah. About his remorse. And I feel that Alan's being Allen.

And, you know, he has to, doesn't come to grips yet with the forgiveness of the people that testify. I had a lot of witnesses. They had 24 government informants, 64 witnesses altogether, but 24 them was people involved in the operation. And I've forgiven them all. In the same way many of the people were watching the Netflix thing for the first time, have you given anybody advanced copies of your book that are in the book, people that are

in the book? I've given most of the books that got advanced for me was for people with social influence and... Okay, so none of the people, none of the characters that were, you know, friends of yours. No, I just, I'm sending book Alan today. Okay, so this is new.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is hot. Is anyone nervous about it? I mean, like, anytime, even if it's a good intention book, I mean, to know that your name is in a book, sometimes that could give you a little anxiety. Yeah, I did change. some names. Did you? In the book, yeah, I did because some of the people I couldn't get a hold of to see if they were comfortable with that. So in talking with the publishing company,

I just decided, you know what, let's put another name on this character. Yeah. Yeah. Protect them. Yeah, I just, you know, I want privacy. Yeah. If people don't want to be broadsided. So what are you doing with your time? Like, you know, I paint. Saw that, are you still doing that? I love the paint. This is taken almost a year of my time to five days a week, so I put the painting on the back burner, and I like to oil paint.

I put oil on canvas, but I want to tell you something amazing that has happened to me. I am so blessed. The state of New Jersey in March awarded me a cultivation license, and not just any cultivation license, a tier four, which is to cultivate up to 75,000 square feet of canopy, which is 40,000 pounds of weed a year, legally. So with that blessing, I'll be able to help these people that are incarcerated in their families who are struggling wanting to work two jobs at one day that can't feed six or seven children that they have because they're, that main breadwinner is in jail for 100 pounds of weed.

So I've got an opportunity here that is like once in a lifetime. So I've been in New Jersey trying to acquire property. I have what's called a conditional license. They gave me, the state gave me 160 days, 120, and they gave me 45-day extension to show the CRC, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, that I have property in an approved municipality. So I have I

my property, I have a letter of intent right now and I'm looking for investors and partners that want to take this journey on being profits for purpose. Yeah, my question then would be having the history that you have

and the even, I mean, you know more about this than I do obviously, but aren't you, how can you I'd be nervous to go back, to go into even a legitimate business in something that got me in so much trouble

I'd be nervous. Like that, that I was you know, going to be able to do this just like the lady that helped you. Right. A woman that came to the White House. You know, she was told, California.

She was told, hey, man, this is all good. You're free and clear. And then she ends up going to jail. Yeah, Stephanie. So I guess if I were you, you'd spent 27 years in jail and I'd be like I don't want to do that I don't want nothing to do with weed

for the rest of my life but you're willing to go into big business with this opportunity so right now as I said there's 38 states the pendulum is swinging and there's so many more states that's coming online

the federal government has just written some bills that's in legislation now for safe banking they've got bills pending for descheduling marijuana from a scheduled one narcotic, which it shouldn't have been to begin with. They've also got some bills to legalize this. When will it come? Nobody knows. I suspect in the next five years, maybe, legalization federally. But meanwhile, all these states

are on board in a big, big way. It's not changing. It's not going backwards. I got you. And the federal government is they see all these states. These states are incorporating laws that we can't get pinched on it. And they, I have an opportunity here to help others. And being of service and helping others is a wonderful thing. And I'm all about it. I want to give Matthew, even Alex, the opportunity.

I know Matthew, you're pretty excited about having Randy here today. Is there anything? that we haven't covered today or any questions that you've got that you want to make sure you be able to ask? Yeah, Randy. Thank you. I'm fascinated by your story and I'm a big fan and I've always had one question I've wanted to ask you that I've never heard and all the different things you've done from Rolling

Stone to all the different media outlets and it's through your jail time, through everything you've been through, you know, you wanted to be a racer from the, from the get-go when you heard that Indy 500 on the radio when you were a kid. You had such an incredible run at Indy on your rookie season. If you weren't convicted, have you ever thought of that? Like, do you think you would have won an Indy-500? Have you ever daydreamed about that? So in my mind, any racetrack that I go to when I was racing,

I was going to win it. I'm trying to win a race. I'm not I'm trying to win so after my first run at Indy I thought I got this and my next oval was Michigan 500

we qualified quite well ended up cutting a tire Mario had crashed I cut a tire in that race hit the wall at 214 miles an hour bad wreck as you know when you take them shots like

that. It takes a moment sometimes, but yet you want to get back in a race car. I had a compound fracture to my right femur bone along with the nagging on my head. And that, unfortunately, was the end of my racing career because I got indicted and went to the joint. But I thought I definitely was destined to win Indy 500. You got anything, Alex? No, I'm just blown away by this whole conversation, honestly. This is a, I haven't watched a Netflix documentary yet, so this was definitely going to watch it tonight though. Yeah, definitely want to read the book, Survival of the Fassus. Yeah. With Randy Lanier out today. Um, Mike. Where are you going to go smoke this joint? I'm kidding. I'm playing. Yeah, I echo everything these guys say. It's, it's been a privilege to have you

in this table and just sharing your story. And I can't wait to read your book. Thank you. I got to tell I've been comfortable sitting here. Good. Kicking it with you guys. Yeah, good. All right? I want to see you shop. Okay.

Walk around. Yeah. And just, look, man, we had a good conversation. Yeah. Well, man, we really enjoy doing what we're doing. And right on. We're very fortunate to be able to, you know, sit down and have these kind of conversations with a lot of different people. And I heard about your story probably.

I listened to a podcast you did about 16, 15 months ago. Oh, that was my podcast. Randy Lydia smoked? Yeah, I did a podcast. I did a little different. I did a series. That's right. I did six, six, it was my first podcast.

That was my first podcast. I listened to that on the way home from Ohio on a hunting trip. And it was a fascinating story. And so that's when I kind of started to want to know more about you and stuff. thanks for uh you came all the way from florida to be here with us today yeah and uh just want to thank you for taking the time out of out of out of your day to be here uh we want we hope that this book deal goes really well for you um i can't wait to start reading it knowing now that um there's things in this book that we didn't hear about today that we didn't see in a documentary that we

haven't even you know there'll be a lot of new things that we're going to learn about you um so if you have been a fan of anything randy leneer you anything in this book, you might be learning a lot of new things about Randy that you haven't heard yet. So I want to make sure people go out there and support that. It's been a lot of fun. Different. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Different for a racing podcast. Mike Joy didn't have smuggling stories last week. You did. Well, we mixed it out with some racing stories and some smuggling and some prison. We kind of covered it.

We could certainly sit here and talk all day. Yep. And I hope people appreciate the information you gave us today and listen to your story. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Of course. Really appreciate you. Yeah.

Hope you enjoyed it, man. We sure did. So Randy Lanier on the Dale Jr. download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or the studio, as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally. A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect

with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download a true ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. All right, everybody, there it is. 393, part two of Randy Lanier, just an incredible story about a guy who risked it all, literally, and paid a lot of, you know, paid the price. I'm fascinated by these type of stories, the Gary Balloos, the Randy Lanier's, and there's, you know, so many other people out there that have kind of went a similar route and taken those type of risks to do something they wanted to do really.

bad lead and that's race cars. So, thanks to our sponsors, Xfinity, Bojangles, Ally, everybody for giving us the opportunity. And hope everybody enjoyed how we did this, you know, breaking it down like this and just a great opportunity to get Randy here. And I'm glad you got to learn about this too, Mike, because I know when we went into this several weeks ago

talking about getting Randy here, you, you weren't, I was excited for you to kind of learn about this. Yeah, I didn't know who he was. But then in researching him, I even had conversations with other people when we found out that Randy Lanier was actually going to be in our studio. Like Jordan Taylor and I were talking. I mean, like the EMSA series guys are fascinated by this story, as they would be, right? So it's, look, we should just reiterate that Randy's got a new book out, Survival of the Fastest. That's one of the things that, I mean, even after today's podcast, even if you've watched the Netflix special,

this thing here is going to be worth reading. So I'm going to absolutely be one of those people. So Survival of the Fastest with Randy Lanier. All right, everybody. week. Have a great weekend. And we'll see you in Michigan. It's going to be a lot of fun. Oh, by the way, in Michigan. Play-by-play guy.

Well, you just got a little advice from Mike Joy and all of a sudden you're signing up, boys. I'm looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun. That's a pretty straightforward race, great racetrack. Should be pretty good action. It would be kind of like Atlanta. Yeah, hopefully so. Yeah. All right.

Good luck. See everybody in Michigan. Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.