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Moyer optimistic about steering new Longhorn

November 26, 2013, 10:12 am
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor

The next chapter of Billy Moyer’s Hall of Fame racing career will come behind the wheel of a Longhorn Chassis.

The 56-year-old racer from Batesville, Ark., one of Dirt Late Model racing’s most successful drivers with 774 career victories and six World 100 trophies, today announced a partnership with the in-house chassis of Trinity, N.C.-based Bobby Labonte Racing, a team that has struggled to find national touring success with the August 2010-launched Longhorn. | Sidebar

Moyer will work closely with Labonte’s long-time driver, four-time Lucas Oil Series champion and fellow World 100 winner Earl Pearson Jr., along with team engineer Kevin Rumley, whose nose-to-tail redesign of the Longhorn a year ago helped Pearson snap a 30-month winless streak on the national tour in early 2013.

“I’m very optimistic that thing will be a hit right out of the box,” said Moyer, who has driven a self-tweaked Victory Circle Chassis most of the past seven seasons. “I’ve not even thought about it not being successful. I don’t think there’s any doubt in my mind we’ll be able to make 'em go.”

Moyer, who won seven races overall in 2013 while capturing the first-year National Dirt Racing League championship, plans to showcase his No. 21 Longhorn in NDRL’s booth at the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show on Dec. 12-14 in Indianapolis, Ind.

“That’s pretty much having the best in the business come in and get cars, so it’s very exciting to us all. I’m sure it’s going to accelerate our learning curve greatly,” said Rumley, who first began serious discussions with Moyer in late October. “To get where he has, he makes very, very good decisions, so it was a huge compliment to us all for this to move this quickly.”

While Labonte’s shop will service the Carolinas, Moyer will manage Longhorn's sales and parts nationally with a chassis he's dubbed Moyer Xtreme by Longhorn. Moyer plans to continue as a dealer for Bakersfield, Calif.-based Victory Circle, providing continued service to more than 170 cars sold from his Batesville shop since 2008.

Billy Moyer Jr., 25, the Lucas Oil tour’s JRi Shocks Rookie of the Year, is also switching to Longhorns. Father and son may debut their new pieces in January at Tucson (Ariz.) International Raceway’s NDRL-sanctioned Winter Extreme, but that’s dependent on the elder Moyer’s recovery from mid-December hernia surgery, he said.

The partnership with Moyer marks the second straight off-season Longhorn has made news after last November’s hiring of Rumley to redesign the car, along with the addition of Steve Shaver of Vienna, Va., as a part-time driver.

At East Bay Raceway Park during February’s Florida Speedweeks, Pearson ended a victory drought going back more than two years, then added another Lucas Oil victory June 22 at Wythe Raceway in Rural Retreat, Va., en route to a fourth-place finish in Lucas Oil points, his best series standings finish since 2010.

“Everybody knows we had a better year this year than last year and we think (Moyer’s partnership) will be even that much better for us,” said Pearson, the Jacksonville, Fla., driver who held the Lucas Oil crown from 2005-’08. “Both sides are excited about it, and I’m very excited about it because Billy drives similar to like I do. We both kind of keep the car straight, and we have similar styles of driving … it’s a great deal.”

Moyer said he was grateful for his connection to Victory Circle over seven seasons that included a stellar 2010 campaign with a sweep of Eldora Speedway’s Dream and World 100 and a three-victory domination at the Iowa’s Lucas Oil Late Model Knoxville Nationals.

When he first joined the California chassis builder, the distance appealed to him in a sport “where everybody can be on top of what everybody’s doing,” Moyer said. But in recent years, the chassis hasn’t kept pace with the competition and that same distance was a hurdle for making needed improvements.

“I just feel like I went as far as I could go with them guys out there,” said Moyer, who took an immediate liking to Rumley, comparing him to NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Kevin. I call him the Chad Knaus of the dirt industry.”

Moyer was also impressed by Labonte’s shop and entire team, confident they’ll make the changes necessary for a chassis named Longhorn to harken back to the Texas roots of the Labontes, a family that produced three NASCAR championships between brothers Bobby and Terry.

“I don’t even have a second thought of not being able to make a car go,” said Moyer, assuring he’s still enthusiastic in the twilight of his driving career. “They’re ready to do what we need to do. If we need to build 15 cars before February to make it go, that’s what we’ll do.

“I really like the atmosphere that I’ve seen so far with all those guys. …  I think we can all work together, and I want to bring my team guys, like maybe Bub (McCool), so we can all work together with Earl and Shaver and myself and we’ll just keep trying to make the car better and better.”

Rumley was glad Moyer was impressed in his November trip to Labonte’s shop.

“Some of the stigma that’s in our sport that’s chassis-related it because everything is a copy of a copy,” said Rumley, acknowledging he and Moyer share similar ideas with chassis development. “Next year we’re going to come out of the box strong and everything seems to be falling into place here.”

The feedback the Moyers can provide will be a benefit to Pearson, Shaver and other potential Longhorn customers.

“Things are going in the right direction,” Pearson said. “We all wanted it to move a little quicker, but later in the year, we felt like we got to the point where we were competitive about everywhere we went.”

Rumley is also anxious to work with Billy Moyer Jr., in improving his racing program. The younger Moyer is on board and confident that his father is guiding them down a path to continued success.

“Longhorn’s not the best car in the business right now,” Billy Moyer Jr. said. “We’re going to try and make it that.”

 
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