There are few in the dirt-track racing industry that can call racing their full time job. In this segment I’d like to profile a driver who works hard off the track but still finds time to bring everything he’s got to the track. That man is Randle Sweeney. I had an opportunity to get to speak with Randle and the 182 team while I was interviewing him for Dirt Modified Magazine (look for the article to be in the June-July issue of DMM). The thing that struck me most is that racing is seen as a hobby to most spectators. The truth of the matter is that most drivers spend way over 40 hrs a week either working on their ride or at the track, combined with the minimum of 40hrs we put in at our day jobs. Speaking of day jobs – Randle Sweeney is a logger, yep an AX-Man, just like the ones on the new history channel series. That’s were his newest nickname comes from, Lumber-Jack Smack. Brilliant if you ask me! The man risks his life more at his day job than at the track. Sweeney’s logging business is ran by the Sweeney brothers and their father, who’ve admitted to leaving early on Friday’s to get to the track.

On the track, Randle is tough-there’s no doubt about that. Logging and racing don’t have much in common but you can bet that his work ethic at the track has much to do with his hard work during the week. That hard work has paid off though; the team boasts five wins already this season, three of them being big event wins. The team scored their first win the first time they pulled the car off the trailer at East Bay during the Winter Nationals over a field of the best open-wheel mods in the country. He got another special event at Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway in March, two at his home track, Soggy Bottom Speedway, and another at the 99 extravaganza when the Lucas Oil Lates were on hand. Winning isn’t new to the 182 team, Sweeney boasts over 250 UMP open wheel mod wins and even has a couple wins in the late model division.

For a period of time he drove the #33 Burr Motorsports late model but gave up on it because it prevented him from attending some of the bigger mod shows around the area. In addition to the 250 plus UMP wins he also came close to taking the national title – twice! In 1998 Randle finished second in the UMP national standings to a young man by the name of Jimmy Owens, ring a bell? He was also the runner up for the title in 1995 and held the title for the southern region many times. He is currently first in UMP points for the south and keeps collecting the wins. In 2007 the team saw streaks that’d have any race fan wonder if he was cheating (he definitely doesn’t). Between the months of June and July of 2007 the team brought home four wins a second, then five more wins. May of 2007 was a perfect month, Randle and the crew got at least one win for every weekend he raced. Overall 2007 was a successful year for the full time logger, full time racer. The team took top honors in UMP standings in the state of Kentucky and also the UMP south regional championship with 21 UMP sanctioned wins. The team also scored 17 non-sanctioned wins to add to their resume. Randle Sweeney is a testament to the working class race car driver, finding success in business and in his race-car. With over 20 years in the business and five feature wins already this season it looks like Lumber-Jack Smack will be laying the “smack down” for years to come.