Reid Lanpher Racing has signed two primary sponsors for the 2012 season and has also signed a driver development deal with Ricci Race Cars of Westbrook.
Mission Trailers and Team EJP have been signed as the primary car sponsors for all 2 of the cars Reid will be racing this summer. Lanpher has some big shoes to fill at EJP Racing where he follows the likes of Ricky Craven, Andy Santerre, Steve Prescott and Cassius Clark.
Lanpher has also agreed to a deal with Tony Ricci of Ricci Race Cars to be the first driver in the Ricci Race Cars driver development program. It is a two year agreement.
The 8th grader at Maranacook Middle School just finished up a busy winter season as well. He was the starting center on both the Maranacook Middle School and Maranacook 8th grade travel basketball teams. He kept his racing skills sharp by competing the United States Cross Country East circuit where he won every race he entered and won the Championship for the 10-13 year olds. Despite being limited to a 500cc sled due to his age, Lanpher also had the best times of any 14-17 year old racer at all the events despite racing against the older competitors who were on 600cc race sleds. Possibly the highlight of the winter race season came when Lanpher received a phone call the night before the East Coast Sno Cross circuit visited Carrabasset Valley for their first race in Maine in 3 years. A team owner offered him a ride for the next morning and Lanpher got on the podium despite starting in the back row with 9 other racers lined up in front of him. This was Lanphers 2nd race ever on a sno cross track and the former motorcross champion never missed a beat.
Lanpher will team up with multi time NELCAR champion and veteran Legend racer Bob Weymouth of Topsham and run at least 25 NELCAR races on both ovals and road courses. 15 of those races will be at New Hampshire Motor Speedway where last year, Lanpher became the first 12 year old to race on the big track and secured 5 top five finishes including during both NASCAR Sprint Cup Weekends.
Ricci will be the crew chief when Lanpher run on the Granite State Pro Stock Series along with other selected Super Late Model/Pro Stock events in the Northeast. When asked, Lanpher said this year was all about getting seat time before he runs a full time SLM schedule in 2013 after he gets his learners permitt (which will then allow him to compete in the Pro Series at Beach Ridge). Until then, Lanpher will be racing every weekend at various tracks with only a few dates in Maine, where he is not yet old enough to run at either the Ridge or at Oxford Plains Speedway which are the primary tracks for Pro Stocks and Legend car races.. For more information, please visit www.reidlanpher.com