• Tara Bozick •
• Originally published January 14, 2009 at 11:27 p.m., updated January 14, 2009 at 11:27 p.m.

Wade Moyer traveled to Bentonville, Ark., with the intention of buying a race car and wound up making an investment in his future.

"He went to go on a visit," Wade's father, Bert, said, "and he hasn't been back since."

Wade Moyer actually returned to his Inez home two weeks later, but only to pick up more clothes so he could go back to Bentonville, where he has been working with car designer and racer Jared Landers for almost a year building open wheel or outlaw modified dirt track cars.

"You've just got to have a knack or something," said Wade Moyer, who was able to return home for a few days during the Christmas holiday. "I don't know what it is. I've asked myself a thousand times why, but I don't know why. I've threatened to sell everything and do something different, but I can't get away from it."

Racing is in the Moyer family bloodline. Bert and his father raced and Wade was behind the wheel of a car the family built from scratch on the dirt track at Texana Raceway outside Edna when he was attending high school at Industrial.

"It started out as a hobby and turned into something he could pursue," Bert Moyer said. "You've got to work hard if you really want it. He's met a lot of good people."

Wade was introduced to Landers, whose father is a business partner of NASCAR driver Mark Martin, while he was in Arkansas and soon became a member of his team.

"He raced cars and he has people calling and wanting a car," Wade Moyer said. "I was helping him, kind of crewing for him, and that's when he asked me to kind of hang around and do what he'd taken on there. There's people who are buying complete cars that want transmissions and motors in them and people who are buying the bare minimum."

Moyer usually gets to the shop around 8 a.m. and rarely leaves until almost midnight. Moyer has time for little else, but he cherishes the experience and has learned a lot about what it takes to be successful in racing.

"You grasp a little bit and the next time it's a little bit more," Moyer said. "You start seeing how things work and what they do. It's just sitting there and you stare at it all day long, you go home and you think of something and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's really bad. If it's a bad idea, you think I should have never done that.

"But that's the only way you can keep an edge. You've got to be able to do that and want to do that and I never really did when I was racing here. If I hadn't ever gone up there and taken a chance and gone racing with them, I wouldn't have ever taught myself anything."

Moyer misses getting behind the wheel and is still thankful to his friends, sponsors and crew mates for making it possible.

"I've got to get back into racing," Moyer said. "I get the itch for it every time I'm there. I'd really like to do it. It's just the situation I'm in, I really haven't gotten the opportunity to do it."

Moyer is not sure how long he will remain in Arkansas, but he's always on the lookout for opportunities.

"It has a lot to do with connections and sad but true a lot to do with money," Moyer said. "The economy is a big factor. There is not even a full field at some races."

Moyer is getting ready to travel to Florida for Speed Week, which features two weeks of racing leading up to the Daytona 500.

He is looking forward to the racing and the chance to make some connections.

"It's opened a lot of doors honestly," Moyer said. "There are a lot of jobs here and there. Everywhere we've gone, I've more or less gotten a job offer. I don't really know where it's going to take me. There's the NASCAR deal and you can always hope for something like that."

Mike Forman is a sports writer for the Victoria Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6588 or mforman@vicad.com, or comment on this column at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.

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