CONCORD, NC – Sept. 6, 2007 – It’s time for the Big One.

The prestigious World 100 is this weekend at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, and the stars of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series are loaded for bear to chase the $40,000 top prize.
 
Two of this year’s steady WoO LMS travelers are previous winners of the grand daddy of big-time dirt Late Model races – and they happen to currently occupy the top-two spots in the tour’s points standings. Points leader Steve Francis of Ashland, Ky., captured the UMP DIRTcar Racing-sanctioned event’s coveted ‘globe’ trophy in 1999, and Chub Frank of Bear Lake, Pa., who sits 52 points behind Francis in second place, basked in the glory of a World 100 victory in 2004.
 
STEVE FRANCIS is hoping that he can carry the momentum he’s built up during his superb 2007 season on the WoO LMS trail – two wins, 19 top-fives and 31 top-10s in 35 A-Mains – into this weekend’s World 100.
 
Make no mistake: Francis needs something to help him get his groove back at Tony Stewart’s half-mile oval.
 
“Eldora has kind of had our number the last few years,” said Francis, who will celebrate his 40th birthday on Sept. 10. “It seems like ever since I won that (World 100) race, I haven’t been good in it again.”
 
Indeed, Francis followed up his ’99 victory with back-to-back fifth-place finishes in the 2000 and 2001 World 100s, but since then he’s logged finishes of 13th (2002) and 25th (2006) and failed to qualify three times (2003-05).
 
Nevertheless, there’s still no event that gets Francis more excited than the World 100.
 
“When I won it in ’99, it was probably the best feeling I ever had after winning a race,” said Francis, who is shooting for his first career WoO LMS title. “I’d been going there since I was a kid. I was there for the first time when Charlie Hughes won it in ’76. Right then I knew I wanted to be a race car driver – and I knew I wanted to win the World 100. We’re fortunate to have done that.”
 
Francis plans to enter this year’s World 100 behind the wheel of the same Valvoline Rocket car that he drove in last weekend’s WoO LMS meet at Tri-City Speedway in Franklin, Pa. He won the first half of the Tri-City doubleheader and finished second in the finale.
 
A triumph in the 2004 World 100 has simply made CHUB FRANK crave another Victory Lane celebration in front of 20,000-plus fans.
 
“Before I won the World, I always just wanted to win the Dream (Eldora’s $100,000-to-win dirt Late Model event held in June),” said Frank, who finished third in this year’s Dream 100. “I just figured, ‘The heck with the World, I want the money for winning the Dream.’ But after I won the World, I was like, ‘The hell with the Dream.’
 
“It’s the prestige of the World that means so much. It’s like winning the Daytona 500. Winning it put an exclamation point on my career, and I hope we can do it again.”
 
Frank, 45, will go to the post in World 100 qualifying in the same Lester Buildings Rocket car that he campaigned last weekend at Tri-City, but with a twist. The machine will sport a special paint and graphics scheme for the World 100 – a ‘Chubzilla’ theme complete with bright green colors, reptile-like ‘scales’ and headlights that look like mean monster eyes.
 
Of course, Frank’s merchandise trailer will be selling a special line of t-shirts, hats and diecasts cars featuring his World 100 Late Model.
 
CLINT SMITH of Senoia, Ga., who is third in the WoO LMS points standings, heads to Eldora with plenty of confidence. He feels he’s ready to win a crown-jewel dirt Late Model event.
 
“Fortunately we’ve made every major (event) this year and been top 10 in every one of them,” said Smith. “We just gotta get our race program a touch better and I think we might be able to win a major this year.
 
“The World 100 would be the one to win. It’s by far the biggest race – equal to a major points title, the way I see it.”
 
Smith, 42, is coming off a late-charging sixth-place finish in last year’s World 100. He also finished eighth in June’s Dream 100, and he placed 10th in the July 27 WoO LMS ‘Subway 50’ at Eldora despite breaking a wheel and hitting the wall.
 
The Southern star will run the same GRT car he drove in July’s WoO LMS event at Eldora. It’s been in his shop being completely redone since that race.
 
“It was real good back in July (at Eldora),” said Smith. “I was running about three-quarter throttle because I had a wheel breaking, but I was still keeping up with everybody. We were real good at the end even with the back spoiler knocked off it (from slapping the wall). If I could’ve really got up on it, I think we would’ve been real good.
 
“I’m feeling real good about the racetrack it it’s either a slick condition or a heavy condition. We got good setups for either condition.”
 
Fans can expect to see a little special look to Smith’s No. 44 this weekend. He slyly said there’s “a rumor” that the headlights of his machine will be decaled to look like the green cat eyes that dominate one of his popular ‘Cat Daddy’ t-shirts.
 
Though he’s only 19, JOSH RICHARDS of Shinnston, W.Va., is already looking to qualify for his third World 100. He was even in the mix for the win in last year’s event before settling for a fourth-place finish.
 
But the big-race experience ‘Kid Rocket’ has at Eldora – he’s also qualified for two Dreams – doesn’t mean he’ll waltz into the track this weekend feeling like he has something figured out.
 
“That place is real intimidating – it doesn’t matter who you are,” said Richards. “All the drivers are there, and you only get one lap of qualifying (in each round of time trials) so you have to be on the edge of your seat for that lap. You can’t mess up, or you’re in trouble.”
 
Richards expects to run the same Mark Richards Racing Enterprises/Seubert Calf Ranches Rocket No. 1 that he has driven in all his Dream and World 100 starts. It’s a battle-tested machine that Bart Hartman also drove at Eldora when he was the Rocket House Car driver back in 2004.
 
After battling for the lead late in the 2006 World 100, Richards hopes he can finish the deal this time around.
 
“It would be awesome to win it,” said Richards, who sits fourth in the WoO LMS points standings. “That’s every Late Model racer’s dream, and I think we have a legitimate shot if everything works out.
 
“Last year I had such a good car. I’ve watched the tape of the race, and I think there’s a few things I could’ve done to better. I know how hard it is just to get that close to winning it, so hopefully if I can get in that position again I’ll be ready.”
 
SHANE CLANTON of Locust Grove, Ga., wants to win the World 100 for one person: his car owner, Ronnie Dobbins.
 
“He’s been trying to win it a long time,” Clanton said of Dobbins, who has been fielding cars in the event for a couple decades. “If I won it, he’d be tickled to death.”
 
Clanton, 32, has made two starts in the World 100 A-Main and finished 11th both times (2004 and 2005). He failed to make the starting field last year.
 
“We have a new (Rocket) car and a new (Custom) motor – new everything,” Clanton, who is fifth in the WoO LMS points race, said of his World 100 assault. “We got the car two weeks ago, and we’ve been getting at it ever since.”
 
RICK ECKERT of York, Pa., has experienced a big win at Eldora (the Dream), but his best World 100 finish in eight career feature starts is fourth, in 1999.
 
The 2007 season has been a struggle for ‘Scrub,’ who is uncharacteristically winless on the WoO LMS and sits sixth in the points standings. But he feels good about his chances this weekend thanks to the Raye Vest-owned GRT car he debuted less than a month ago.
 
“I feel real comfortable in the car,” said Eckert. “I’m confident going in. I know Clint (Smith) ran good (at Eldora) with a GRT this year, Wendell (Wallace) ran good there with a GRT, Garrett Durrett ran good there with a GRT. I think we’ll have a shot.”
 
Eckert, 41, will compete in the World 100 with another new fulltime crewman – the fourth fulltimer he’s worked with this year. After losing the two mechanics he started the season with just before June’s Dream at Eldora and then having Dave Atkins depart following the recent ‘Scorcher 100’ at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn., he’s now receiving help from Chad Curran, a 25-year-old from Conway, Ark.
 
Curran, who last year worked for Virginia’s Ronnie DeHaven Jr., was working at the GRT shop in his homestate when Eckert spent several days there last month building his new car. Eckert mentioned that he was looking to hire another crewman and Curran jumped at the opportunity.
 
“Now I’m working my dream job,” said Curran, who reported to Eckert’s shop in the Keystone State on Aug. 29.
 
DARRELL LANIGAN of Union, Ky., who is seventh in the WoO LMS points standings, debuted a new Rocket car in June’s Dream 100 at Eldora and promptly drove it to a fourth-place finish.
 
That run has the ‘Bluegrass Bandit’ bullish about his chances this weekend. The 2003 Dream winner has made 13 starts in the World 100 A-Main since 1990, with a top finish of second in 1999.
 
After finishing a strong fourth in his first-ever dirt Late Model start at Eldora (the July 27 WoO LMS event), leading WoO LMS Rookie of the Year contender TIM FULLER of Watertown, N.Y., would love to make his initial World 100 appearance. But he has to skip the race because he’s committed to running Saturday night’s Advance Auto Parts Super DIRTcar Series big-block Modified ‘Lebanon Valley 200’ at New York’s Lebanon Valley Speedway; he’s the Super DIRTcar Series points leader.
 
BRIAN SHIRLEY of Chatham, Ill., who is battling Fuller for the WoO LMS Rookie of the Year crown, qualified for June’s Dream 100 in what was his first career dirt Late Model start at Eldora. A first-time World 100 appearance was recently scratched off his Petroff Towing team’s schedule, however, so Shirley could retool some equipment in preparation for the upcoming three-race WoO LMS weekend in the Midwest – Paducah (Ky.) International Raceway on Sept. 14, I-55 Raceway in Pevely, Mo., on Sept. 15 and La Salle (Ill.) Speedway on Sept. 16.
 
But Shirley, 26, will enter the World 100 after all. His familiar No. 3s will remain in the shop, but he’s accepted a last-minute offer to run the Rayburn House Car after its originally scheduled driver notified car builder C.J. Rayburn that he would be unable to attend.
 
Shirley’s rapid five-year rise through the dirt Late Model ranks has come with plenty of help from Rayburn, so he was a perfect fit to fill the empty seat of the No. 1CJ machine.
 
Time trials and non-qualifiers events for the World 100 are scheduled for Fri., Sept. 7. Heat races, last-chance events and the World 100 final will be run on Sat., Sept. 8.
 
Visit www.worldofoutlaws.com this weekend for updates on the exploits of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series drivers in the World 100, and visit www.eldoraspeedway.com for more information on the World 100.