MANCHESTER, Maine – Reid Lanpher admits he just wanted a good finish on the road course at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, an oddity on the NELCAR Legends Tour with its high-speed test of right- and left-hand turns.
The 14-year-old Manchester, Maine, driver ended up making history – winning the second road course event of the season at New Hampshire back in May, becoming both the youngest winner in NELCAR history and the youngest race winner ever at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the process.
“To win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was a pretty big deal. It was really cool,” Lanpher said. “There was over a 24-car field that day, and some of the guys on that Tour have been doing this for 15 years. To run with those guys – let alone win – was a pretty big deal for me.
“I went into that race willing to settle for Top-5. About halfway through, I was like, ‘Wow. I can win this.’ I wasn’t expecting it at all.”
It was only the beginning of a year that has seen Lanpher post a pair of victories, seven Top-5 finishes and nine Top-10s in the No. 59 EJP/Mission Trailers Chevrolet. He’s won at Unity Raceway and is within shouting distance of 10th in the overall NELCAR standings – despite being sidelined for all 10 races at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway due to the track’s minimum age requirement for competition.
With the championship picture taking a backseat for Lanpher, he’s focused on performance over the final few months of the 2012 season. He’s been working alongside Tour veteran Bob Weymouth of Topsham; Weymouth took a liking to Lanpher after discovering their similar motocross backgrounds.
“I’d really like to click off a couple more wins this year,” said Lanpher, who sits fourth in the NHMS track standings. “I’m slowly getting there – now I have a shot at winning on the NHMS oval. We’re making minor adjustments and finally getting there.
“At Star Speedway last weekend (before being rained out), I thought we had a shot at it. We were the fastest in practice all day, and in our heat we went from eighth to second. It was a big confidence booster. I left there feeling like I could some more wins this year.”
Lanpher’s efforts this season have been focused on NELCAR, but that’s not all the former go-kart and motocross standout has been doing. He’s also competing part-time in a Super Late Model for Ricci Race Cars of Westbrook, Maine. Lanpher entered the Granite State Pro Stock Series Gate City Classic 100 at Hudson (N.H.) Speedway and plans to compete later this month at Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, N.H.
Right now, it’s all about seat time for the young racer who broke his back as a 10-year-old competing in a motocross event. The learning curve in stock cars has been steep, but he’s ascended it quickly.
“We’ve gotten to the point where I’m still young – and I want to go up as far in the ranks as I can and just have fun doing what I’m doing,” Lanpher said. “All the motocross, snowmobiles and everything else I’ve raced has transferred over to the (Legend) stuff a ton. It’s about learning to set people up to pass, finding the racing lines, arcing into the corners, all those little things that I’ve tried to pick up.”
This weekend, Lanpher will be back at New Hampshire to race on the temporary quarter-mile circuit in the Turn 1 section of the tradition NASCAR oval. His ability to adapt to racing stock cars has been the biggest key to making him a threat for another trip to Victory Lane.
“We’ve gotten better with the equipment from last year, gotten more laps and gotten more consistent. I’m gaining on it there,” Lanpher said.
“I was basically coming out go-karts and went into a mini-Modified (in 2010) – cars with all the rubber in the world and a numb power-to-weight ratio. I went right out of that into a Legend with these skinny, treaded tires with a lot of power-to-weight ratio. I took to it better than I thought I would at first.”