The
Journey
Every short-track career starts somewhere. Conner's started in a high school parking lot at age four and a half, in a quarter midget borrowed from the man who still calls his setups today. This is the whole climb — rung by rung.
Quarter Midgets
The first laps came at age four and a half in a quarter midget owned by Tyler Hughes — now his crew chief — around a high school parking lot. Then came rookie school at Blackbird, a 1/20-mile clay bullring on the grounds of Airport Speedway in Delaware. By June 14, 2015, a five-year-old Conner held the club's Red Rookie class track record (9.5580 seconds) — a mark that stood for roughly five years. At six he was double-classing Jr. Honda and Jr. Animal nearly every Sunday, taking his first documented feature win in the Jr. Animal A-Main on July 2, 2016. Before he aged out, he'd swept three features in three different classes in a single race day — a "3 for 3 at Blackbird" that made the quarter-midget fan pages.
Bandolero
At eight years old, Conner went to Florida for the 2018 INEX Winter Nationals at Citrus County Speedway, won a Beginner Bandolero feature on Valentine's Day afternoon, and left with the week-long Beginner Bandolero championship — run down after trailing by three points entering the final day. That summer he raced the Bojangles' Summer Shootout at Charlotte Motor Speedway and ran Bandoleros at Langley Speedway carrying the family #8W. The era closed with an INEX state championship in 2020 — the first of three state titles in five seasons.
Legend Cars
This is where "C-Weed" became a name short-track people knew. Racing the #8C against his own father — Mike "Weedy" Weddell, a two-time INEX Maryland Masters state champion — Conner took his first overall Legend Car win on June 18, 2022 at Dominion Raceway and the 2022 Young Lions state title with it. Then came 2023: eight feature wins, including a six-race win streak to close the year, the Dominion Raceway INEX Legends track championship clinched on October 15 at age 13, and the official INEX Maryland Young Lions (Asphalt) State Championship — the same season his dad won the Masters title. He added a road-course win at Summit Point's Turkey Bowl that November, beating his own mentor Tyler Hughes, and four more Legends wins in a part-time 2024 — including a doubleheader sweep — while his focus shifted to fenders.
Into the Fenders
Announced at 14 as a Legends standout "moving up," Conner jumped into Dominion's Virginia Racer Late Model division in 2024 with car owner Chris Phillips and 18-time Late Model Stock winner Tyler Hughes calling the shots. Ten weeks in, he charged from seventh to take his first career Late Model win on June 8, 2024 — then added two more on the way to third in points as a rookie. In 2025 the division became Dominion's NASCAR Division I featured class, and Conner delivered three more wins including a Jeep Night sweep of the Twin 50s, a fifth-place points finish, and third in the national NASCAR Division I rookie standings. The year also brought his Late Model Stock debut (qualified third, led late in the Triple Memorial 200), his zMAX CARS Tour debut in the Mini's Mission 125, and his first crack at Martinsville — racing through a heat to finish 16th of a 66-car ValleyStar Credit Union 300 entry list.
The Late Model Stock Chapter
Now comes the hardest weekly racing in America: full-time Late Model Stock at South Boston Speedway with Tyler Hughes Motorsports, against national champions every Saturday night. It's going well — a runner-up debut against Lee Pulliam, a first career pole, and a top-five points fight. That story is still being written.
It runs
in the blood
Dad raced arenas as "Weedy" and owns two INEX Maryland Masters state titles. Mentor-turned-crew-chief Tyler Hughes put Conner in his first quarter midget and still builds his race cars today. One November weekend at Summit Point in 2023, all three of them won Legends features — Conner, his dad, and Tyler.