While they weren’t super close friends as Lovejoy High School classmates, Dwayne Moore and Courtney McGarry Weber shared a common bond that connected them years later.
Their affinity for NASCAR.
“My dad was a Dale Earnhardt fan and I was a Rusty Wallace fan,” Moore said.
Weber loved the sport and her favorite driver, Alan Kulwicki.
“I was 100 percent a fan,” she said.
After high school, they both turned their passion into NASCAR careers and instead of passing each other in the Lovejoy hallways, they saw each other at race tracks. They also crossed paths with another former Lovejoy classmate, Luke Jackson, who worked in NASCAR for Aaron’s from 2008-2020.
All three graduated as part of Lovejoy’s Class of 2002, and all worked in NASCAR for years.
“I think it’s very cool and unheard of in the industry for people who graduated from same high school, the same class, in the same industry and the industry is two states away,” said Weber, the director of communications for Richard Petty Motorsports. “It just proves if you pursue your dreams anything can happen.”
Moore was a big dreamer, a kid who wore NASCAR shirts through the hallways at Lovejoy, at the time the closest high school to Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“You live so close to the race track there, this is all I’ve ever wanted to do my whole life,” said Moore, who returns to AMS this week as an over-the-wall pit crew member for Stewart-Haas Racing. “You go to school and kids are always talking about football, basketball, baseball. To be honest, I didn’t do that stuff. I did racing.”
His work toward a career in NASCAR began through a high school co-op program that allowed him to work for the driving school at AMS.
“I had the grades and I could have gone to a good college, but sitting in a classroom is not what I wanted to do,” Moore said. “I hurried through homework. I didn’t want to do it. I’d rather be working on cars.”
Not long after he finished high school, Moore moved to North Carolina to pursue his dream.
“I told my dad, ‘We watch this every Sunday. Now I’m going to try and be a part of it,’” he said.
Moore went to pit crew school and caught his first break in 2004, joining Richard Childress Racing and drivers Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer for Busch Series races. After a year, he accepted a Cup job with MB2 Motorsports, where he worked with driver Joe Nemechek and briefly, Mark Martin. He followed with jobs at Michael Waltrip Racing, earning his first win with driver David Reutimann at the 2009 Coca-Cola 600, and with Red Bull Racing before finding his way to his current role at Stewart-Haas Racing.
“It’s the best place I’ve ever worked,” the tire carrier said.
Moore has amassed memories, memorabilia, honors (like the 2015 Pit Crew of the Year award) and a handful of victories, one that clearly stands out more than others. He won the 2017 Daytona 500 as a pit crew member for Kurt Busch, a rewarding victory after a near-miss a decade earlier when Martin led the last 49 laps at Daytona before losing by a bumper to Harvick.
“Since (the close loss with Martin), that race meant so much to me, I wanted it so bad,” Moore said. “I wanted it bad anyway because I’m a race fan. But finally getting to pull it off with Kurt, it was emotional for sure. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”
His victory list doesn’t include one at AMS, his home track.
“Who knows, maybe Cole (Custer) can pull it off (this week),” said Moore, who now works on Custer’s No. 41 car for Stewart-Haas.
AMS also is a special place for Weber, a classmate of Moore’s since elementary school.
“I grew up right behind the race track, you literally heard the cars,” she said.
She had a connection to NASCAR — her stepfather was a sports writer covering the sport — and became a fan at a young age. She took her first job in motorsports during the summer before her 10th grade year at Lovejoy, working Thursday Thunder at AMS and watching drivers like Reed Sorenson, David Ragan, Joey Logano and others. She continued to work at the track for NASCAR races, often in the media center passing out notes to reporters, and during the summers while she was a college student at Valdosta State.
A conversation with her favorite driver, the late Kulwicki, is one of her favorite stories from her younger days.
“When I met him, I told him, I want to be a Hooters girl’ because I thought that’s how you got into racing,” Weber said. “He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Go and get an education and do it the right way.’ I just saw Hooters girls around and thought that’s how you got into racing.”
After college, Weber moved to North Carolina to chase a career in motorsports the right way.
“From Alan is how I built my career around small, independent teams,” she said. “I really have a passion for smaller teams, the independent teams and typically I enjoy roles where I’m the one person that handles the travel, the PR, everything. I think that’s another reason why I have such a fond relationship with the Nemechek family and Joe Nemececk … Now I’m working with Richard Petty. I actually have a picture of me with him in ’92, ’93 and now I’m working for him. It’s completely full circle. It’s the same with Richard Petty Motorsports. We’re technically an independent team and we’re fighting the big dogs.”
Weber has an appreciation for an underdog.
She admits that she broke into the business initially thanks to the connection of her father, a NASCAR journalist, but raves about Moore and his journey from a racing fan to active participant. She said there is a sense of pride in seeing his success, knowing they grew up in the same place.
“To see him on a pit crew is cool, to know from Lovejoy High School he followed his dreams,” Weber said. “I was indoctrinated into it because of the family aspect. I was lucky to have a stepfather in the industry and I was somewhat blessed with a foot in the door. For (Moore) to literally go from a fan with no connection, he went from nothing and followed his dream. And there are not many who have Daytona 500 championship rings.”