Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: Leafing through Show-Me 100 memories
I never attended a Show-Me 100 at West Plains (Mo.) Motor Speedway, the track now known as Legit Speedway Park where the event was launched in 1993 by promoters Don and Billie Gibson and contested through 2009. For that, I’m sad. I missed out on a major slice of Dirt Late Model history, a period during which the race blossomed into the division’s Memorial Day weekend tradition.
The stories I’ve heard about those days at West Plains all sound great. There was a romantic quality about such an important, high-paying show residing at a down-home, family-owned track like West Plains. I would have loved to experience it in person — the racing, the famously slick track surface, the Show-Me 100 mascot, Gus the Mule, in action on his native turf. Alas, I wasn’t covering Dirt Late Model competition in the Midwest for most of the race’s life at West Plains, and when I began working in the division full time in 2006 as the public relations director for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, the Show-Me 100 didn’t fit into my schedule.
But as arrive at the event’s home since 2010, Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., to cover this weekend’s 34th annual Show-Me 100, I can still be a bit nostalgic. This is the ninth Show-Me I’ve worked since joining DirtonDirt in ’14, so it’s been over a decade since I started trekking to southwestern Missouri as part of my holiday weekend pattern. I’ve witnessed plenty over that time, and I can honestly proclaim that the event has become one of my favorites on the Dirt Late Model calendar.
Actually, I’d go as far as saying that the Show-Me 100 had produced as many memorable moments for me as any annual event I’ve covered for DirtonDirt other that the majors at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. Wild. Thrilling. Controversial. Downright unusual. I’ve seen it all at Wheatland.
From my first visit to Lucas Oil Speedway for the 2014 Show-Me 100, the event and its home grabbed me. In fact, that initial trip was so fun in every aspect, I remember the entire weekend like it was yesterday — and not only because it was the first crown jewel event I worked for DirtonDirt.
Of course the Lucas Oil Speedway facility itself was overwhelmingly impressive. Just turning off Route 54 onto the track’s grounds gave me the feeling I was at a big event. There ahead of me was an expanse of cut grass, hundreds of campers, a paved pit area filled with haulers and, just beyond, the showplace racetrack itself. It gave me the Magic Kingdom-at-Disney World sense I’ve talked about with Eldora, where you don’t really see the track by simply driving by it on the road. Your first real glimpse of it is when you’re inside the gates.
There were some humorous moments I recall from my first Show-Me. For instance, my then DirtonDirt colleague, Derek “D-Suave” Kessinger, busted my chops when I experienced some trouble up in the tower handling the qualifying results for opening night in my first time doing live updates on the website. And all of us busted on Michael Reiners, now a veteran FloSports staffer but then an upstart DirtonDirt intern, when the weekend grind got to the green youngster and he was caught napping on the couch in the track’s tower media room.
The peripherals of that 2014 Show-Me were a joy. DirtonDirt founder Michael Rigsby was there as well, as was his father, stepmom and cousin, among others, and each night when we returned to our lodging in nearby Hermitage, Mo., the quaint Clearlight Inn, Barry Rigsby would have a late-night meal that he prepared in the hotel’s kitchen waiting for us in his room. Before the races we ate at Smith’s Family Restaurant a few miles past the track or the bar and grill at the marina on the water near the Clearlight, and often we’d grab a cone or sundae at the ice cream stand across the street from the hotel.
On top of it all, the racing all weekend was superb and the storylines intriguing. Back then the Show-Me format featured one complete preliminary program on Thursday and time trials and heats for the 100-lapper on Friday — the event changed in 2016 to its current twin prelim shows on Thursday and Friday locking the top points earners into the 100 — and the late Scott Bloomquist captured the opening-night A-main, but he had to turn back a challenge from unheralded Arkansas driver Robert Baker to do it. After the race, Bloomquist, when asked about denying Baker an upset victory, gave me one of the many sterling quotes he offered up during his Hall of Fame career.
“Let’s just say this,” Bloomquist told me with a smile, “I don’t want to create any more heroes.”
Baker went on to qualify for the Show-Me 100 and finish 19th, but a couple weeks later he was disqualified from the position because Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series officials announced the right-front tire he used in a Friday heat race failed a laboratory test. The ruling didn’t change his runner-up finish in the Thursday’s Midwest LateModel Association-sanctioned event, but, looking back, a tweet the then 17-year-old Bobby Pierce fired after finishing a distant second to Baker in a heat in the opener might have been a bit prescient.
“Not really sure if everyone is running true hard tires,” Pierce’s tweet began. “Makes me wonder. That heat kinda shocked me. Hmm…”
Then there was my first Show-Me 100 finale. It was an extremely entertaining affair, filled with action up front (five leaders and eight lead changes in a 65-lap span) and a first-ever Show-Me victory for Don O’Neal. Then 49, it was O’Neal’s third career crown jewel triumph and just might have been his most complete performance ever in a major. The noted hard-charger displayed a patient, poised approach, eschewing the “birdie” on his shoulder telling him to move to the top each time he was passed for the lead and instead staying calm and disciplined in his lane to regain command and ultimately win by a straightaway.
What a Show-Me 100 I got for my first one. But I’ve seen more dramatic races over the years, events that charged me up to write. While there are three Show-Me 100s that I didn’t cover since ’14 — Jonathan Davenport’s victory in 2015 because it was postponed to July and covering the DIRTcar Summer Nationals prevented me from returning, 20-year-old Hudson O’Neal’s breakthrough first-ever crown jewel in ’21 (Joshua Joiner was on the scene for DoD) and Devin Moran’s ’23 triumph after apparent victory Ricky Thornton Jr. was penalized for a deck-height violation (Kyle McFadden covered the event) — the others I’ve attended since ’14 have typically never failed to offer something unforgettable.
Not surprisingly, Bobby Pierce has been a big player in my Show-Me 100 history. He threatened to steal the show in ’14, breaking into third place late in the distance only to be slowed in his pursuit of O’Neal by a pesky carburetor problem. He thrust himself right into the story in ’16 when, at just 19, he nearly pulled off the unthinkable — win the 100-lapper from the 29th starting spot. Pierce had to outduel Jack Sullivan in the non-qualifiers’ race just to make the finale’s starting field, but he charged through the field and, after passing Davenport and Jimmy Owens to reach second, he inherited the lead on lap 91 when the pacesetting Bloomquist had his car’s left-rear wheel come off. Pierce never officially led a lap, however, because he had to change a flat tire during Bloomquist’s caution period, and Owens went on to his fourth career Show-Me victory while Bloomquist rallied to finish second after surviving a lap-98 scrape with the Pierce that gave Pierce another flat.
One year later Pierce roared back with his first Show-Me 100 victory. Surviving a track surface that he said “would make your car bounce like a basketball,” he moved forward from mid-pack (14th) to pass Earl Pearson Jr. on lap 87 and become, at 20, the youngest winner in Show-Me 100 history.
And in 2018 Pierce was at it again. After he sailed into second place on lap 81, he seemed primed to do the same to Bloomquist to assume command and author the definitive chapter of his Show-Me story. But just as he was prompting the crowd to rise, another carburetor problem and a lack of traction on the cushion caused him to slip back to a fourth-place finish as Bloomquist finally captured his first Show-Me at Wheatland after winning five at West Plains.
Bloomquist’s ’18 triumph was especially memorable. Yes, he benefitted from Owens spinning out of the lead amid lapped traffic on lap 69, but just being in position to take advantage of the opportunity was a testament to his vast abilities. Bloomquist had to come back from two of the most mind-numbing moments of his career during the previous night’s preliminary program.
Indeed, ’18 was the year of Bloomquist’s infamous pill-draw scandal. Lucas Oil officials did not allow him to participate in time trials as a penalty for failing to follow the “proper procedure when drawing a qualifying number.”
Bloomquist was involved in countless strange incidents during his career, but this one went over the bizarre side. I recall the pit area being abuzz with speculation when one of his crew members at the time, former driver Jordan Bland, was caught attempting to manipulate the pre-race draw for qualifying positions in Bloomquist’s possible favor by illicitly acquiring the No. 2 pill from the bingo spinner cage when it was sitting unattended outside the Lucas Oil Series before registration began.
Bland later admitted to the ruse he tried to pull off for his boss. When I spoke to Bloomquist, he could only shake his head over Bland’s move.
“I mean, all I can say is, I have done a few foolish things I thought were harmless in life and then later reflect back on them and realize that it was pretty stupid … and hopefully he will feel the same way,” Bloomquist said with a laugh.
Bloomquist proceeded to save his night with a third-place finish in the feature from deep in the starting field — and after another equally unbelievable episode during the second B-main. He won the race from the seventh starting spot while racing the final nine circuits with his car’s left-front suspension useless after a restart scrape with Jimmy Mars while battling for second place. Those circuits Bloomquist turned with his left-front wheel locked in place were as electric in crowd-reaction terms as any I've ever witnessed.
“It’s just one of those things. It’s just another night,” Bloomquist said with a hearty laugh. “This might be a short chapter in the book (of his career). Hell, there’s been a lot of crazy nights.”
There was Show-Me 100 in 2019 — remember that wicked storm (perhaps a tornado?) that whipped across the track on Monday of race week, tossing around early-arriving campers, nearly topping a handful of race haulers parked in the pits and blowing the bleachers outside turn one into the track’s infield, among other damage — and in ’20 there almost wasn’t one again with Covid-19 restrictions preventing it from being run on Memorial Day weekend. But the race was rescheduled for a Saturday in mid-July and I traveled out to cover what ended up being arguably the biggest upset in its history.
Payton Looney, a 26-year-old from Republic, Mo., in just his fifth year of Super Late Model competition, dominated the big dogs, leading from lap 20 to the finish to join Terry Phillips as just the second home-state winner of the race. It was certainly the most emotional post-race scene I’ve encountered following a Show-Me, which was understandable. Looney, a second-generation racer, said he “grew up sitting in a lawn chair in turn three at West Plains,” so the Show-Me 100 was a race that ran through his veins. Talk about a special moment for a journalist to cover.
Another uplifting, somewhat unexpected winner came to me in my next Show-Me 100 in 2022. North Carolina’s Chris Ferguson captured the race to join the club of Dirt Late Model crown jewel winners. I can vividly remember interviewing Ferguson in the track’s inspection building, the joy and satisfaction on his face showing all the blood, sweat and tears he’d experienced on his way to a major win that proved to himself that he could do it. He was the first $50,000 winner of the race as well after the event’s top prize was increased from $30,000 for ’22.
The last two years have been Show-Me 100s claimed by the sport’s superstars: Davenport in ’24, Pierce in ’25. Davenport’s second Show-Me victory was unusual in that it was a dominating flag-to-flag run that came over the 80-lap distance (it was shortened by approaching rain and challenging track conditions) and, as he later noted when I talked to him in his trailer, didn’t feel like a crown jewel win because rain arrived just after the race ended so he had to hurriedly load up to escape the storm and didn’t get to celebrate with the fans. Pierce’s second Show-Me, worth a race-record $75,000, was also more mundane than his usual Wheatland escapades as he gained control from Davenport on lap 69 and never looked back — although it was certainly noteworthy because he struggled so much the previous two nights he asked his crew in victory lane: “Did any of you guys think we'd win tonight?”
I’m hoping that this year’s Show-Me 100 offers up more theatrics than the last two. I have a feeling it will. And after putting in countless miles prowling Wheatland’s pristine pit area through the years, I’ll add some more this weekend to chase down some more stories. Maybe I’ll even grab an ice cream with some sprinkles before getting to the track.
