Highlands, TX — By Kevin Kovac, WoO LMS P.R. Director

POST-RACE VISITOR: When Shannon Babb climbed out of his car after winning Saturday night’s inaugural World of Outlaws Late Model Series Lone Star 100 at Battleground Speedway, the fans in the nearly-packed grandstands roared their approval of his exciting, cushion-pounding drive.

But the crowd also was interested in the commotion outside turns one and two.

As Babb donned a cowboy hat and spoke with WoO LMS announcer Rick Eshelman in Victory Lane, Hondo, a 1,300-pound Texas Longhorn from the LaBuff Bucking Bulls ranch in nearby Ames, Texas, was being led by his handlers toward the post-race celebration. The brown-and-white steer came into clear view of the fans when he reached the turn-one exit gate and began strolling down the homestretch.

The ecstatic Babb, who had already jumped for joy atop the roof of his car, didn’t think twice when Eshelman asked if he was ready to kiss and climb on Hondo. “Yeah, I’ll kiss him,” said Babb, who proceeded to march over to Hondo and plant a wet one on his head.

Babb’s kiss prompted Hondo to swing his head slightly and let out a deep grunt, but Babb avoided the steer’s six-and-a-half-foot horn spread. He then happily climbed on Hondo’s back with a boost from the beast’s handlers, waved his cowboy hat to the cheering crowd and called on his chief mechanic, Jay Hunt, to try Hondo on for size as well. Hunt accepted the challenge, hopping on Hondo for another photo that drew the fans’ applause.

Hondo’s appearance was a definite hit – and Battleground Speedway promoter Mike Walling pledged that a Texas-themed photo opportunity with a Longhorn will become a traditional part of the Lone Star 100, which he plans to make an annual highlight of the track’s schedule.

The 34-year-old Walling was so thrilled with the blockbuster turnout for the two-day show – just the third weekend of competition at the Houston-area track since Walling purchased and reopened it last month after three years of inactivity – that he was already talking with WoO LMS director Tim Christman about the tour’s return in 2010. In addition, Walling took to the microphone during the Victory Lane ceremonies and thanked the throng of fans who made the event such a success by offering everyone with a Lone Star 100 ticket stub free admission to Battleground’s March 28 program. “The next race is on me,” Walling said to a hearty cheer.

FEELING GOOD: Babb’s $20,100 triumph came at a track that immediately reminded him of his hometracks in the Midwest when he eyeballed its thick black clay.

“Yeah, it resembled some places in my area,” said Babb. “It was different every night we were here (practice on Thursday, qualifying on Friday and Lone Star 100 on Saturday), and at the beginning (of the 100) I didn’t feel good at all. But once we started running that cushion I could just twist it up there and it felt like racing back home.”

The victory was also Babb’s first with his new ’09 program, which he is operating out of his own shop in Moweaqua, Ill., with help from, among others, Sheltra Motorsports, Petroff Towing and Donley Trucking. He followed the complete WoO LMS for the first time in 2008 and finished sixth in the points standings driving for NASCAR Sprint Cup star Clint Bowyer, but he decided to leave Bowyer’s outfit at the end of the season.

“I think a lot of people were disappointed when I quit Clint’s deal, but life goes on,” said Babb. “I just had so much going on at my house, it felt like the right move for me. Life’s short, and you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Babb left Battleground ranked fifth in the WoO LMS points standings, 48 points out of first. He has noted that he’s not planning to run the entire schedule, but he will enter at least the next two events – and beyond that, who knows?

RARE SIGHT: Darrell Lanigan went through his entire 2008 WoO LMS championship campaign without being struck by flat tires, but he’s already experienced two this season – in a heat race on March 13 at Deep South Speedway in Loxley, Ala., and on lap 40 of Saturday’s Lone Star 100 as he raced in the lead.

The Union, Ky., driver has recovered nicely from both misfortunes. He came back to transfer through the heat at Deep South and rallied to finish second at Battleground, which he called “one of the best tracks” the tour will visit all season.

“It was excellent,” he said of Battleground’s multi-groove surface. “Anytime you can go to the back (after pitting) and come back up to finish second, you know it’s a good track. You could race all over the track for all 100 laps.”

RELIEVED: A fourth-place finish – and his ascension to the WoO LMS points lead – was more than Josh Richards could have imagined for himself when the Lone Star 100 began.

“After practice tonight I wasn’t confident at all,” said Richards, who was saddled with the 15th starting spot after a rough-and-tumble heat-race run on Friday night. “In hot laps I felt terrible, so we changed so much stuff for the feature, I didn’t know how the car would react.”

To Richards’s surprise, he climbed as high as second before settling for a solid fourth-place finish.

“After all the scuffles we were able to get to second behind Babb and I thought we’d be able to race him a little bit,” said Richards. “But I think him and Darrell (Lanigan) were a little bit softer on tires. At the end I couldn’t run the top as well as they could, but I’m more than happy with fourth. Starting where I was I just wanted to get a good, solid top-five finish for the points, and we came out with one and the car’s in one piece.”

Richards also praised the Battleground oval: “For a hundred laps, it couldn’t get any better than that. I had so much fun tonight. As far as race-ability for a hundred laps, it’s probably the best track I’ve ever raced on. You could pass the whole way.”

Shortly after the checkered flag of the Lone Star 100, Richards reported that he had unwound by drinking his first legal beer. He turned 21 on Sunday, so with the clock past midnight Eastern Time when he finished a post-race briefing with his crew, he took his sip of suds.

GOOD TRIP: Chub Frank was smiling after his visit to Texas.

The Bear Lake, Pa., star was pleased with his season-best finish of fifth in the Lone Star 100, of course. He nearly grabbed fourth from Richards on the final lap, but an apparent fuel-pickup problem dive-bombed his bid.

“With about seven, eight laps to go, the engine started missing like it was running out of fuel,” said Frank. “On the last lap I was all the way up beside Josh out of (turn) four and it quit. We have some sort of problem when the (cell) gets down on fuel, but I don’t know what it is yet.”

Frank, 47, also did some profitable wheeling-and-dealing off the track, selling virtually every t-shirt he brought along in his hauler, a bunch of equipment and tires to local drivers and even an old door from one of his cars. He was so busy handling t-shirt sales and talking with locals seeking his advice (Texans Chris Brown and Kevin Sitton both ran former Frank cars in the weekend’s action), he was still in his uniform long after the Lone Star 100 ended.

CHANGE OF FORTUNE: Steve Francis saw his bid to author just the fifth three-race WoO LMS win streak since 2004 come to an unceremonious end on a lap-17 restart of the Lone Star 100.

Seventh when the green flag flew, Francis was in the middle of close-quarters racing when his Dale Beitler-owned car went sideways off turn two. His prone machine was clipped by at least two passing cars, inflicting front and rearend damage that left him with a 23rd-place finish.

“Me, Shannon (Babb) and whoever started behind me all got into that slime on the inside of the track,” described Francis, who headed directly for Rocket Chassis in Shinnston, W.Va., following the event to have a new front clip put on the car. “I happened to be up at Shannon’s right-rear corner, and at the same time I had somebody against my left-rear corner. It just so happened that when I got off Shannon, (the other car was) still against me and it just kind of hung me sideways in the middle of the racetrack. Then I killed the motor and I was a sitting duck.

“I really think we had a top-three, top-four, top-five car, but woulda, coulda, shoulda doesn’t pay the bills.”

Francis, who spent Saturday entertaining a group of his cousins who live in Texas and took advantage of a rare opportunity to see him race in person, fell from first to third in the WoO LMS points standings.

“We don’t want to start the kind of trend we had last year – you know, win two, then run 23rd,” said Francis. “We’re all gonna have weekends like this. The guy who wins the points is gonna be the guy who has the fewest weekends like this.”

TOO MANY CHANGES: Muscatine, Iowa’s Brian Birkhofer had a pretty good idea of what might have cost him a better shot at victory in the Lone Star 100.

“I wish I would’ve left my car like it was last night,” said Birkhofer, who nosed ahead of Babb to lead laps 56 and 71 but couldn’t complete a pass and fell to third at the finish. “We’ve been doing certain things since the end of last year, but I didn’t stick with that tonight.”

ILL-HANDLING: Menomonie, Wis.’s Jimmy Mars led laps 1-35 of the Lone Star 100, but he began to struggle shortly after ceding the top spot to Lanigan. A broken spring strip in the right-front corner of his machine left him unable to turn effectively, forcing him to retire on lap 65 after losing third place to Richards.

GOOD SAVE: Shane Clanton salvaged an eighth-place finish out of a weekend that began with a harrowing ride on the first lap of Friday night’s fourth heat.

Clanton’s car bicycled on its right-front wheel when he caught the cushion in turn one during the prelim. He avoided a devastating flip, but he pounded the wall and his car required several hours’ worth of front-end repair work to be ready for Saturday’s action.

The Locust Grove, Ga., driver used a provisional to start 23rd in the A-Main. He steadily moved forward, but choosing a tire compound that was harder than most of his rivals kept him from climbing higher than eighth.

PIT SERVICE: Clint Smith finished seventh in the Lone Star 100 despite pitting during each of the two caution periods on lap 40 – the first time to bolt on a softer right-rear tire, then to change helmets.

Smith lost all of his helmet tear-offs early in the race due to a broken pin on his shield, leading to a clay-caked shield that nearly obscured his vision. The backup helmet his crew retrieved for him to strap on helped, but he still faced poor visibility because the second helmet had a tinted shield for use in sunny daylight conditions.

DUAL DISAPPOINTMENT: Rick Eckert and Vic Coffey both saw very promising nights end abruptly when they tangled off turn two on lap 36.

The two Northeasterners were racing right behind leaders Lanigan and Mars when Eckert’s car appeared to slide up the track slightly in turn two – directly into the path of Coffey, who was charging hard off the cushion. Coffey made contact with the rearend of Eckert’s machine, sending Eckert against the backstretch wall and breaking the front suspension of Coffey’s mount (unable to steer, he climbed the wall in turn three).

Eckert, who started from the pole position and actually slid ahead of Mars a couple times early in the race without officially leading a lap, attempted to return laps down but retired before the halfway mark.

Coffey, meanwhile, mourned the premature finish of what might have been his most impressive WoO LMS outing ever.

“That was probably the best I’ve felt in a Late Model,” said Coffey. “We were going forward and I think we had as good a shot to finish up front as anybody.

“I had a good run on the outside of Rick (on lap 36) when he came up the hill. He didn’t know I was there coming off the cushion so hard, so by the time I realized we were gonna get together, we were together.”

SURVIVOR: Brady Smith finished 10th – the last driver on the lead lap – with a car that was thoroughly beat up from his involvement in the early scramble caused by Francis’s spin.

Among the damage to Smith’s machine: crushed right-rear sheet metal plus a bent rearend, shock and lower A-frame.

THE ROOKS: Bristolville, Ohio’s Russell King earned the $250 bonus as the highest-finishing WoO LMS Rookie of the Year contender, placing 13th in the Lone Star 100.

King, who celebrated his 20th birthday on March 18, earned his spot in the headliner by winning his second career WoO LMS B-Main. He struggled in the 100 but gained plenty of experience by completing 98 laps.

Dustin Hapka of Grand Forks, N.D., was the other rookie contender in the A-Main field. He finished 14th (five laps down) after using a provisional (highest driver in the 2008 points standings not to qualify) to start 24th.

Rookie candidates Brent Robinson of Smithfield, Va., and Tyler Reddick of Corning, Calif., suffered heartbreaking fates in Saturday’s second B-Main. Robinson charged from the rear of the field to bid for the final transfer spot but fell just short on the last lap, while the 14-year-old Reddick raced in a transfer position until slipping high off turn four on a restart with two laps to go and falling to fifth.

Robinson’s DNQ came after he experienced a frustrating Friday night at Battleground. His car’s driveshaft broke as he headed on the track for his time-trial laps and he dropped out of his heat race.

Rookies Chas Shellenberger of Winfield, Pa., and Chuck Hummer of Ottawa Lake, Mich., also failed to qualify. Shellenberger scratched from Friday’s heat action after a hot-lap accident left his primary car with significant damage; he returned for Saturday’s B-Main after swapping the bent car’s engine into his backup mount but didn’t threaten for a transfer spot. Hummer, who made the haul south for the Alabama/Texas swing with his car on an open trailer, experienced a flat tire in his heat and was off the pace in the B-Main.

ANOTHER ROOK?: Jordan Bland, 21, of Campbellsville, Ky., stayed on the road with the Outlaws, entering the Lone Star 100 while he continues to contemplate throwing his name into the Rookie of the Year conversation.

Bland, who finished one lap down in 12th place, has until the Illini 100 on April 3-4 at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway to apply for Rookie of the Year status with the WoO LMS.

LONE STAR LEGEND: No driver received a more rousing ovation during the Lone Star 100 driver introductions than Howard Willis, a well-known veteran from nearby Dayton, Texas.

“I was proud of those people,” smiled Willis, a 55-year-old who won five SUPR series dirt Late Model events at Battleground between 1992 and 1997. “When I heard that I told Chub (Frank), ‘They like me tonight.’”

Willis, 55, gave his home crowd a show, moving from the 11th starting spot to fifth by lap 22. But he slowed with a flat left-rear tire on lap 32 and later smacked the wall between turns one and two on lap 40, ending his night with a 20th-place finish.

“The car was fast,” said Willis. “We were cruising out there. I think we were even back up to 10th when I hopped the cushion on that (lap-40) restart.”

Willis drove a MasterSbilt car owned by Tony Flynn of Oklahoma City, Okla., who also provided the engine that was bolted inside the car driven by another local favorite, Kevin Sitton of Baytown, Texas. Sitton won a B-Main but was involved in the Francis incident and dropped out later.

Willis said his 2009 schedule will consist mostly of open-wheel Modified and dirt Late Model events close to home, but he might venture farther away for some bigger dirt Late Model shows when Flynn is available to travel. Flynn maintains a five-weeks-home, five-weeks-out-of-the-country work schedule as a senior drilling manager of Transocean, Inc., the world’s largest off-shore drilling company. He currently oversees the operation of more than a dozen drilling rigs off the coast of India.

TOUGH NIGHT: Chris Wall of Holden, La. – the Gulf Coast star known as the ‘Intimagator’ – began his weekend in promising fashion with the fifth-fastest lap in time trials and a second-place finish in his heat.

But after drawing the fifth starting spot for the A-Main, a hard-tire choice contributed to his early fall well outside the top 10. He pitted after getting caught up in the tangle surrounding Francis’s lap-17 spin, but he returned and by the halfway mark was battling for sixth place. Alas, he spun on laps 51 and 65 and retired shortly thereafter, finishing 15th.

ON THE ROAD: The traveling WoO LMS teams found some time to have a little fun along the Gulf Coast during the off days between the Deep South and Battleground events.

A group that included Francis, Clanton, Eckert, Brady Smith and Bland visited Chris Wall’s Louisiana compound. The received a tour of Wall’s C&M Gator Farm – a complex where he is currently raising over 20,000 gators – that included an exciting ride on the air boats that he uses to collect gator eggs in the Louisiana bayous and also raced radio-control cars on a dirt track on Wall’s property.

Meanwhile, Coffey and his Sweeteners Plus Racing boys hooked up with the Birkhofer and Mars teams for stops at the beach in Pensacola, Fla., and a wild bead-tossing night on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Chub Frank spent an evening in New Orleans with his wife and chief mechanic Brad Baum, and Eckert took his wife and crewmen Zach Frields and Chad Curren for a sun-splashed day on the sand in Galveston, Texas.

NEXT UP: The WoO LMS continues its ‘Month of Money’ on March 27-28, visiting The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., for the fourth annual Circle K Colossal 100. A $50,000 top prize will be on the line from a total purse of $250,000.

Time trials and heat races will be contested on Fri., March 27, with B-Mains, the ‘Charlotte 30’ for the top-28 non-qualifiers and the Circle K Colossal 100 set for Sat., March 28.

For ticket and event information, visit www.lowesmotorspeedway.com or call 1-800-455-FANS.

The World of Outlaws Late Model Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including Arizona Sport Shirts (Official Apparel Company), Armor All (Official Car Care Products), Crane Cams (Official Valvetrain), Hoosier Racing Tires (Official Racing Tires), Fusion Energy Boost (Official Energy Boost), SuperClean (Official Cleaner-Degreaser) and VP Racing (Official Racing Fuel); in addition to contingency sponsors Champ Pans, Eibach Springs, Hoosier Tires, Integra Shocks, Jake’s Custom Golf Carts, Ohlins Shocks, Racing Electronics, Quarter Master and Wrisco Aluminum; Crane Cams Engine Builder's Challenge participants Cornett Racing Engines, Custom Race Engines and Pro Power Racing Engines; and Chassis Builder Challenge participants Rocket Chassis and Team Zero by Bloomquist.