CONCORD,
NC – Dec. 23, 2007 – Tis the season for the top-10 drivers in the 2007 World of Outlaws Late Model Series points standings to fondly recall their alltime favorite Christmas presents…
Not surprisingly, there’s a motorized theme running through many of these racing boys’ top holiday memories.
Take reigning WoO LMS champion Steve Francis, for instance. The ‘Kentucky Colonel’ has two Christmas gifts from his childhood that he can’t quite separate as being the best.
“I was probably six and my brother (Chris, who passed away in 2001) was four, and when we got up on Christmas morning Mod and Dad had this big slot-car track set up for us downstairs in the basement,” says Francis, 40. “The track crossed, there were loops – it had everything. For a six-year-old kid, that’s pretty entertaining, and we played with that thing all day and for years after that. I loved it – and as a matter of fact, me and my daughter have (a slot-car track) right now and we play with it all the time.
“Another time, when I was probably 10 and my brother was eight, we got up on Christmas morning and we had two new dirt bikes sitting there. We just rode those things and rode those things.”…
Dirt bikes were also the presents that stick out most in the minds of Clint Smith and Darrell Lanigan.
“I was about 10 years old and I got a Suzuki 125 dirt bike,” says Smith, the 42-year-old Georgia star known as ‘Cat Daddy.’ “I asked for it, and that’s what I got. I loved that thing.”
There was an element of surprise, meanwhile, to Lanigan’s Christmas morning.
“I was like 10, and after we opened all our presents, he told us to go out there to the garage like we were gonna go work or something,” the 37-year-old Kentucky standout says of his father. “Well, the (dirt bikes) were sitting out there in the garage.”…
At the young age of 19, Josh Richards isn’t quite as far removed from his joyous childhood memories as his rivals on the WoO LMS. It was only a few years ago, then, that the Shinnston, W.Va., star who goes by the nickname ‘Kid Rocket’ received the present that made him smile the most.
“I was like 12, and I had been bugging my Dad for a four-wheeler for a couple years,” says Richards, the 2005 WoO LMS Rookie of the Year. “I had a little one, but I wanted a new one, a real one. That year I woke up (on Christmas day) at like six in the morning because I kinda thought I might finally be getting one, and there it was sitting out on the porch.
“I ran it all around the yard that day and then took it down to the (Rocket Chassis) shop to really do some riding.”…
Another form of motorized entertainment provided a holiday thrill to 2007 WoO LMS Rookie of the Year Tim Fuller.
“I was seven years old, and I got a seven-horse Bombardier snowmobile,” says the 40-year-old Fuller, a lifelong resident of New York’s snowy Northcountry. “I had never asked for one, which made it a big surprise. I opened up this box (that was under the tree), and it said, ‘Look out the window,’ and there it was.
“Man, I rode that thing all day.”…
Rick Eckert didn’t need any gas to power his most memorable Christmas gift, but it did have four wheels.
“I got this little electric car when I was just a little guy,” says the 42-year-old Eckert, the second-winningest driver on the WoO LMS since 2004. “It was one of those cars that you charge it up, sit on it, and and step on the gas pedal.
“My old man has video of me just running into people with it all day. I don’t remember that part, but when I see the video, I’m just driving into people and you can see them all getting mad.”
The youngest of five siblings, Eckert relished a surprise present like his electric car.
“There was a lot of kids in my family, so you didn’t ask for anything,” Eckert says with a smile about his Christmas wish lists. “You got what you got, so an electric car was a pretty big deal.”…
Neither fuel nor electricity was necessary to make Georgia star Shane Clanton’s Christmas present go fast.
“The most memorable thing I ever got for Christmas was a homemade go-kart that my Dad built for me when I was six years old,” says Clanton, who finished fourth in the 2007 WoO LMS points standings. “My two brothers got motorcycles, and I got a hand-built push kart that had four slick tires on it. It was under the tree with a bow on it.
“We lived on top of a hill, so we’d just keep riding it down the hill and pulling it back up to the top. It was the coolest thing – you could do donuts with it and everything. When I was 10 years old, all the kids in the neighborhood still came over to ride it.”…
Shannon Babb calls his most memorable Christmas present “a little crazy.”
“When I was a little kid, I always wanted pig for Christmas,” says Moweaqua, Ill.’s Babb, who won five times on the WoO LMS in 2007 and finished 10th in the points standings. “I bugged my parents for one, but my Dad never said a word. Well, when I was about 18, my Dad got me one of those Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs. I thought it was hilarious!
“We had that pig around the shop for probably six, seven years. It never got bigger than a small house cat, and it was smart. I finally ended up giving it to one of my buddies to take care of.”…
Brian Shirley can’t come up with a specific Christmas gift he’s received that stands above all others. Instead, the question makes him think of a funny holiday tradition with his old man.
“Every year for Christmas I get a card with a dollar bill in it from my father,” quips Chatham, Ill.’s Shirley, a 26-year-old who won his first career WoO LMS A-Main en route to a ninth-place points finish during his rookie touring season in 2007…
Chub Frank is another Outlaw who doesn’t have a personal favorite Christmas gift from his past.
“I got anything I wanted when I was a kid – if you ask my cousins, they’ll tell you that,” says the ever-joking Frank, a 45-year-old from Bear Lake, Pa., who led the WoO LMS in victories and finished second in the points standings in 2007. “When we were growing up my cousins always said, ‘If you wanted to see Christmas (anytime), you come to the Franks’ house.’
“We had racetracks. My Dad owned a snowmobile shop, so I rode all those sleds. I never had to ask for all those ‘exciting’ toys (as a present) because we had all that good stuff.”…
Happy Holidays from the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, which kicks off the 2008 season on Feb. 14 and 16 during the 37th annual Florida DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.
For more information on the WoO LMS, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com.
