Mon, 24 Nov 2003, 01:17 AM Congratulations and Happy Birthday

By Bob Frey Photo by:Auto Imagery, Inc.

Weber defeated John Wooley in the final.

Once again this year, Summit Racing and the NHRA brought all of the divisional champs from the Summit Racing E/T series to Pomona for a chance at fame and fortune. The top guns from all seven divisions got a chance to slug it out for bragging rights and, when it was all over, the Division 5 champ, Lane Weber, took home all the marbles in Super Pro, the top class in the Summit Racing series. For Lane, who comes from that hotbed of drag racing, Dacono, Colorado, it was the highlight of more than twenty years of racing that includes high school competition, participation in Bandimere Speedway’s weekly program and some national event class racing, and it all came on the weekend of Lane’s 38th birthday. “On Friday we had some birthday cake in the pits and we shared it with some of the other racers,” Lane said. “We even invited John Wooley (the runner-up to Lane) over. It was a fun way to start the weekend.” Yeah, nothing like giving your competition a little sugar fix to start the weekend is there?

Lane Weber’s trip to Pomona began years ago when he raced in the very competitive high school program at Bandimere. “I got a new Buick Skyhawk from my parents for my high school graduation and I took it right to the track and went to the final in my very first race,” Lane said. “When I came home and showed the trophy to my folks they weren’t real happy because they did think I’d take the new car and race it.” Lane still has that car and he still races it, only this time with his parent’s blessing, in fact he won a divisional race back in 1996 and he went to the finals in Stock Eliminator at the Mile High Nationals at his home track in 2001. “It’s a pretty neat little car, with a V-6 engine and an automatic transmission and it’s fun to drive,” he said. It’s also quite different from the car that he ran in Pomona, a twenty year old rear engine dragster with a Pontiac engine. “A lot of guys ask how I can go from a top bulb, trans brake race car to a full tree, bottom bulb, foot brake style?” he said. “But it just keeps me sharp and I enjoy both of them.”

Weber vs. Neal Rhodes

Like another racer, Peter Biondo, who competes in a variety of classes, Lane has the advantage of just having to drive the car while the mechanical aspects are taken care of by the car owner, Bill Reeves. Bill and Lane have been together for a number of years and the relationship works very well. “We both have our responsibilities and mine is simply to drive the car and not make any mistakes while Bill maintains the car and makes sure that it’s in perfect running order.” At Pomona it looked like both guys did their jobs very well since Lane made six runs and they were all within one-hundredth of a second of each other. “We run the car mildly,” he said. “By that I mean we don’t run it way up in the rpm’s, we take it easy on the engine and keep the timing down so it’s very consistent.” And, in this era of really new, trick cars, Bill and Lane have a dragster that’s been around for about twenty years and, unlike most of the new cars out there that have Chevy engines, this one has a Pontiac. “Bill and his family have always liked Pontiacs and that’s what he was running when we first met so we’ve stayed with it.” A wise choice, don’t you think?

Lane Weber

Like so many of the drivers who get to come to Pomona as part of the Summit series, Lane was overwhelmed by the way the racers were treated. “It was just magnificent. The Summit folks couldn’t have been nicer to us and they really treated us all very well. We all had a great time.” Winning the race obviously helped Lane enjoy the weekend. “From the birthday party to the dinner at the NHRA museum to running in front of the big crowds and racing at the historic Pomona track the weekend was everything a racer could have wanted.” The big crowds, ironically, didn’t seem to faze Lane who is used to running at NHRA national events. His Bandimere final round in 2001 took place in front of the usual standing room only crowd at the Denver track and may have helped keep him calm in Pomona. “I think some of the guys may have been in awe of the whole spectacle, the facility, the crowds and everything although they didn’t really show it. They all ran well and it was a fun race.”

To get to Pomona from Colorado is a quick little eighteen hour ride and Lane, Bill and Bill’s son made the trip rather easily in a truck that Lane borrowed from his ex-wife. “We’re really good friends and she offered it so we took her up on it. It was a nice ride, and the ride home was even better.” Lane, who is a journeyman electrician, said that the people at the company were really glad to see him when he got back to work. When I asked was that because he had won or because they just needed him to do some work he just chuckled and said, “it was a little bit of both, I guess.”

The 2003 Summit racing series Super Pro champ has a lot of people to thank and among them are On Track, U.S. Transmissions and Converters, Front Range Drive Line, Jerry D’s, Marty and Terry Simpson, “The Lang Gang,” Jack Ficco, Excel Electric and Kandra and Tony Villani. “I drive the car and get my name in the paper but I have a lot of support and I’d like to thank all of those people for their help over the years. I’ve met a lot of nice folks in this sport and I hope to keep racing for a long while.” As long as Bill keeps that Pontiac dragster running well and as long as the little “Hawk” keeps humming along, there’s no reason to believe that Lane Weber won’ t be in the winner’s circle again real soon, either at an NHRA national event, a Lucas Oil Divisional race or another Summit Racine E/T series championship event. Congratulations to Lane Weber and happy birthday, too!

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