Eldora Speedway
Focused Lanigan aiming to end World 100 futility
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt.com senior writer
Darrell Lanigan enjoys victory lane. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
ROSSBURG, Ohio (Sept. 7) — Darrell Lanigan wasn’t quite sure how to respond when he was told after his victory in Thursday night’s first 25-lap World 100 preliminary feature at Eldora Speedway that he’s the driver who has made the most career starts in Dirt Late Model racing’s most prestigious event without winning it. | Complete World 100 coverage
“Really?” Lanigan asked incredulously after learning he’s 0-for-22 in the World 100 headliner. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
Indeed, it’s impressive proof of Lanigan’s longevity in the sport that he’s qualified for the World 100 so many times since he entered the Dirt Late Model ranks in 1988. It’s also a bit frustrating, if not exactly disheartening, to a successful, ultra-competitive racer whose resume boasts three World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series championships and four crown jewel triumphs, including Eldora’s 2003 Dream.
Lanigan, 47, of Union, Ky., assumed ownership of Most World 100 Starts Without a Win status when he took the feature green flag in 2014, moving him past Freddy Smith. Beginning his quest for a 12th consecutive (he has the longest active streak of feature starts) and 23rd career appearance in the World 100 finale on Saturday night with a promising triumph left him a bit nostalgic about his long history at Eldora and hopeful of breaking his jinx in the race.
“We’ve been coming here for a long time,” Lanigan said while sitting on a chair in Eldora’s infield media center following Thursday night’s program. “We’ve had some good cars (in the World 100). We’ve run second a couple times (in 1999 and 2013).
“This place just takes a lot of luck,” he added. There’s a lot of good cars — you’ve got the best of the best here — so you’ve got to have your game together.”
Lanigan made his debut in the World 100 headliner in 1990, when he was a fresh-faced 20-year-old driving for his late father Porter. He remembered that Tom Helfrich of Haubstadt, Ind., finished second (behind Scott Bloomquist of Mooresburg, Tenn.), but he doesn’t recall too many other details of a race in which he finished 17th.
“I think it got rained out and we had to run on Sunday in the daytime,” Lanigan said. “I think the tire rule was open and tire choice was a big deal then, and I think we might’ve put the wrong tire on.”
Lanigan has registered six top-five and 11 top-10 finishes in the World 100. He’s led the race twice, pacing laps 1-35 in 1997 (he recalled that his 19th-place finish was caused by a tangle that took him out before the halfway point) and laps 22-32 in 2004 (he again retired early and finished 24th). And he came tantalizingly close to victory in his two second-place performances, most memorably in ’13 when he was in the midst of his spectacular stretch of WoO success and was positioned perfectly for his coveted win with a third-place starting spot.
While Lanigan never led the race in ’13, he settled into second before an ever-quickening Blankenship overtook him just before the halfway point and then grabbed the lead shortly thereafter. It took Lanigan until lap 77 to wrestle second place from Terry Phillips of Springfield, Mo., and he managed to cut Blankenship’s nearly two-second lead in half within 10 circuits, but he couldn’t draw any closer.
“We had a pretty good car and I actually thought we had that one won, but (John) Blankenship got really good,” Lanigan said of the eventual winner in ’13). “It’s disappointing to finish second, but we just weren’t quite good enough.”
Does Lanigan look back on his pair of near-misses and still ask, “What if?” He admitted that such thoughts are unavoidable.
“All drivers do that,” he said. “You run second a couple times and you’re like, ‘Damn, if I would’ve just done this or done that, it would’ve been a win.’
“It would be nice to have it,” he continued. “Every driver wants it. It’s the biggest prestige race you’ll have all year long. It definitely would top it off. But it’s just tough to win.”
And through Lanigan’s nearly three decades of racing at Eldora, capturing the World 100 certainly hasn’t gotten any easier.
“The field’s down a lot more now from it was back when we started coming (104 cars were entered on Thursday vs. turnouts of 200-plus entries years ago), but the whole caliber of cars you have here now is a whole lot better, too,” said Lanigan, who has nine top-five finishes in 18 career Dream feature starts. “When we first started coming up here, you were allowed two or three cars to qualify. I never did do it, but I know there were some guys who had four cars to qualify. Now, you still got a hundred cars and 90 percent of ‘em are really good cars and 50 percent of ‘em can win the race.”
Lanigan won’t claim to be “due” to win the World 100, but his opening-night victory gave him a good feeling about his prospects of finally ending the weekend standing on Eldora’s homestretch stage.
“I feel like we’ve got one of the best pieces we’ve ever had up here,” Lanigan said of his Clint Bowyer Racing Club 29 Race Car that he debuted in last month’s Topless 100 at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark. “It’s a little bit new package on it, different from what we brought up here for the Dream (in June when he won a preliminary feature before finishing 22nd in the feature), just some different shock packages and stuff, and it’s good. I really think we’re on to something.
“We’ve had a really, really good car for most of the year but we’ve had a lot of bad luck, so if we can win this one if definitely would make the year a good one.”
Make no mistake — Lanigan will be laser-focused the rest of the weekend on grabbing that World 100 globe trophy. That’s his normal racetrack demeanor, after all.
“I’m that way all the time,” Lanigan said. “Everybody thinks, Ah, that Lanigan’s stuck up or something, but I stay in my trailer all day and I focus on my car, I focus on my shocks and springs and what’s going on with the car. I don’t like being bothered during the day. I like to concentrate on the race that night … you get yourself in such a deep thought and deep focus that you don’t want to be bothered. Not that I don’t want to talk to people, but you get yourself so focused … man, I get myself into that race car hard.
“I can’t go out there and walk down the pit area and just bulls---. I can’t do that. I’m like in there all day in that trailer, just focusing on the race. That’s just how I am. People think I’m different or whatever, but that’s me.
“Right now, I’m fine,” he added, smiling as he talked about his preliminary victory. “After the race, when I don’t have no pressure getting ready to race, I’m fine. But when it’s race time, I’m there to focus.”
Not surprisingly, Lanigan has some advice to anybody who expects to enjoy a breezy chat with him on Saturday before the biggest race of the year.
“Don’t come around,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t want to talk. After the race, if we win, I’ll talk all night long. Just before the race, don’t come around.”
