CHECKERED PAST: Crockett and The Dude
The World of Outlaws was only four months old when it first visited the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia. On that summer evening in 1978 “The Buckeye Traveler” Rick Ferkel toted Two Grand back...
CHECKERED PAST: Occasional Outlaws
Leland Vance May was as wild as the wind across El Paso, Texas. He left there in 1971 in a Corvette convertible towing a yellow Number 13 sprint car complete with chrome cage, Peace...
CHECKERED PAST: Support System
No one wanted to watch a television show of fewer than 20 sprint cars. This was the executive wisdom behind the World of Outlaws Gumout Support Series. To launch a club for the expressed...
CHECKERED PAST: World of Outlaws 1980
The year was 1980. Georgia peanut farmer Jimmy Carter was President. The Wall by Pink Floyd ruled the radio. The Empire Strikes Back was box office gold. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were champions of football...
Checkered Past: Racing Is Resilient
The World of Outlaws has paused many times. It has been rained out from Florida to Seattle and hammered by hurricanes in Houston and Santa Cruz. It was too windy in Oklahoma City, too...
Checkered Past: Lone Star Lullaby
There are 47 of these United States in our Lower 48. Then there’s Texas. It has its own language, attitude and longest stretch: 825 miles from the Rio Grande to Sabine Rivers. In between...
Checkered Past: Reindeer on Rails
Christmas is a time for family. Religious affiliation does not matter nearly as much as hugging mothers and fathers, laughing with brothers and sisters, and seeing pure joy on the faces of their children....
Checkered Past: Slick 50
It sounded too good to be true. Ten weeks of World of Outlaws Sprint Cars from legendary Manzanita Speedway during the dead of winter all on live television had to be a pipedream. Yet...
Checkered Past: Outlaws Hunt Turkey
Outlaws can be grumpy bears. Three months between World Finals and Florida Speedweeks make them miserable. Some bears refuse to hibernate. They board flights to Australia or New Zealand to race all 12 months...
Checkered Past: Cool Hand Luke
Auto racing has never seen a career quite like that authored by Jimmy Sills, co-author of the new autobiography “Life With Luke” with Dave Argabright. Sills was an outlaw before the World of Outlaws....
Checkered Past: Final Bend
They’re going down to the wire. Like two thoroughbred horses rounding the clubhouse corner neck-and-neck, dominant Donny Schatz and never-been-champ Brad Sweet are taking the 2019 World of Outlaws title fight to a Can-Am...
Checkered Past: Cricket, a profile of Craig Keel
Craig Keel was outlaw by nature. Non-conformist to his core, Keel unconventionally converted a late model to a modified then went sprint car racing when there was no place to race them within 200...