Rick Eckert’s Top 10 World of Outlaws Late Model Series Tracks

In recognition of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series running its milestone 300^th A-Main since 2004 on July 26 at Dog Hollow Speedway in Strongstown, Pa., I presented a simple project to the four drivers and one car owner who participated in tour events at each of the 118 tracks in 30 states and three Canadian provinces that hosted World of Outlaws programs over the eight-and-a-half-year span: Make a Top 10 list of your favorite speedways.

World of Outlaws star Rick Eckert. (Battin photo)

Below is the Top 10 WoO LMS Tracks list for Rick Eckert of York, Pa., the only driver who has started every tour A-Main (now 302 and counting) since the World Racing Group re-launched the series in 2004. He owns 23 career wins on the tour – fourth-best since ’04 – and is the current points leader as he chases his coveted first World of Outlaws championship.

Note: Eckert’s tracks are listed in his order of preference. The number of WoO LMS events each track has held is in parenthesis, and Eckert’s comments about each track are in quotes.

1) Virginia Motor Speedway/Jamaica, Va. (eight races) – “It’s a beautiful facility and the racetrack’s awesome. There’s usually two lanes of racing and the race is usually great, so that’s the kind of place you like to go to.”

2) Lincoln Speedway/Abbottstown, Pa. (one race, in 2005) – “That’s where I grew up, and it’s a cool racetrack that races really good. I just wish we went there more than once.”

3) Lernerville Speedway/Sarver, Pa. (18 races) – “Lernerville’s fun and they keep the racetrack awesome. The last few years we’ve gone there once a year and raced three straight nights, and it’ll go from as fast as you could want it to as slow as you could want it over those three days.”

4) Eldora Speedway/Rossburg, Ohio (two races) – “Eldora’s neat, just because it’s different. You just gotta have your race car totally different and drive totally different at that place. It’s a nice change. Usually you’re either good or you’re bad when you go there – and it’s tough to recover from being bad. It’s a huge challenge.”

5) Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway (one race, in 2007) – “It’s an awesome racetrack and a beautiful facility. The racetrack is big, flat and fast. It’s odd for us that it’s so flat – we get there and it almost looks like it’s banked the wrong way – but the racing is really good there.”

6) The Dirt Track at Charlotte/Concord, N.C. (15 races) – “It can be either way – you either love it or hate it, depending on how they have the racetrack. When it’s right, it’s awesome – just like the whole facility.”

7) Deer Creek Speedway/Spring Valley, Minn. (nine races) – “They have a heck of a track crew. They work on that place all night long and keep it really racy. Anytime you go some place where they put that much effort into the surface and keep the place looking as beautiful as they do, you love that. And they feed us too (teams traditionally receive a pre-lunch pork-chop lunch prior to the track’s ‘Gopher 50’)!”

8) Tri-City Speedway/Pontoon Beach, Ill. (one race, in 2004 on the facility’s former half-mile oval) – “We haven’t raced there since it’s been made smaller, but I raced there once myself since it was shortened. If it was the old (big) racetrack I would’ve never put it on my list, but the new racetrack is pretty cool. They did a really nice job of building a small three-eighths that you can really race on, so I’m looking forward to going there for an Outlaw show (on Fri., Sept. 16).”

9) Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway (10 races) – “It’s a nice place and you usually get a decent track to race on. You don’t usually tear a lot of stuff up there. Besides that, it’s an hour-and-a-half from home.”

10) Delaware International Speedway/Delmar, Del. (seven races) – “It’s aggressive. You get there and it doesn’t look that big, and then it races really big. It’s a fun place.”

Postscript: What’s Eckert’s most memorable WoO LMS event? He answers that question quickly.

“That would have to be Attica,” he says, referring to his dramatic come-from-behind victory in the July 2009 event at the Ohio track. “I was ready to go home after we blew up in qualifying, but then we decided to pull out the backup car and keep racing. I thought we might be done again in the feature when we got a hole in the radiator, but we were able to change it during a red flag and then we came all the way from the back to win it. It was one of those nights that might not have been good for the bank account, but it was still my most memorable Outlaw race.”