Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: Fergy finding his way back
Chris Ferguson didn’t leave Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., after Sunday’s 34th annual Show-Me 100 with the result he was hoping for — he finished a quiet ninth after starting from the third spot — but he still had a smile on his face. This trip was as satisfying as any he had made to a crown jewel event since, well, his last attempt at the showplace track’s marquee race in 2023.
With solid finishes of second and third in Friday’s two preliminary features, the 36-year-old driver from Mount Holly, N.C., could pin a successful rating on his return to Wheatland.
“It was a little frustrating (finish), but overall, a good weekend,” Ferguson said while standing in the pit area after the century grind. “It feels good to come back out here and get on the podium twice. It sucks we couldn’t take advantage of the starting spot tonight, but that’s OK. I’m tickled with how we ran.”
Ferguson hasn’t experienced such positivity very often in recent years, especially on the sport’s biggest stages. He’s admittedly been flailing with his family-owned effort, searching for the strength and synchronicity he had come to display over the previous decade.
“I hate to say it like this, but we’ve been rebuilding our race program for the last three years. And I hate to go back, but, you know, we never wanted to get out of Scott’s cars,” Ferguson said, referring to his move away from the late Scott Bloomquist’s Team Zero Race Car that he began in 2023. “But then they stopped building them. No one was building them, and the jig was here, was there, and everyone kind of heard the rumors, and you couldn’t get a car.”
And thus Ferguson found himself in the wilderness, the feel he had developed for the Bloomquist machines gone. He won 2023’s March Madness at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, N.C., in his first start with a new Longhorn Chassis, but that would be his last full-field feature victory for more than 18 months. Fergy bounced between his Longhorn and Team Zero cars for a bit before losing his last Bloomquist vehicle in a May 2024 wreck and then never could quite figure out the Longhorn.
For a guy who had arguably become one of the country’s best known Dirt Late Model drivers without ever chasing the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series or World of Outlaws Late Model Series, the slump was a jolt to his psyche. Ferguson has a notable resume for a regional racer, including three full-field victories on the Lucas Oil Series and two in WoO competition and a history of running well in major events. He’s tallied top-five finishes in all of the crown jewels at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio (fourth in the Dream, fifth in the World 100 and Eldora Million) and, of course, won the Show-Me 100 in 2022.
The ’22 season was especially productive for Ferguson. His Show-Me 100 triumph was one of two $50,000 scores he enjoyed — the other came in the Bristol Dirt Nationals at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway — and he also captured an Eldora Million preliminary feature and the $20,000 USA 100 at Virginia Motor Speedway in Jamaica, Va. He was rolling with his racing exploits — until he wasn’t.
Ferguson had some success in ’23 while still campaigning his remaining Bloomquist car, including a June semifeature win in Lucas Oil Series action at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn. But once he didn’t have one in his stable anymore he fell into a funk. He didn’t even enter the Show-Me 100 in 2024 and ’25, an absence that killed him because he loves Wheatland so much.
While Ferguson “had a lot going on” the last couple to keep him away from Wheatland — building a new race shop, starting his Victory Seats business, marrying the former Genna Gentry — he also didn’t feel he was running well enough to make the long haul west since his fourth-place finish in ’23.
“We couldn’t get another one of Scott’s cars, and then we experimented with the Longhorn stuff and didn’t really … just kind of battled,” Ferguson said. “And I’m smart enough to know, when we’re not running good, not to go and get our butts kicked because it costs a lot of money.
“We went the Longhorn route, but the car was so much different than what we had that, five years of (setup) notes, you had to just throw out the window. And honestly, we struggled there for a year-and-a-half.”
Ferguson finally went another direction in the spring of 2025 in hopes of revitalizing his performance. It wasn’t a high-profile chassis brand that he moved to: Stinger Chassis, a relative upstart company in Seymour, Tenn., operated by Chase King.
Why did Ferguson choose Stinger? He had a few connections.
“I knew Chase,” Ferguson said. “I met him 10 years ago maybe; he was building cars for Scott. He was working with Scott, welding some stuff, working with (then Bloomquist crew member) Cody Mallory.
“And then my father-in-law and my sister-in-law (Oliver and Olivia Gentry, both racers from Newnan, Ga.), they were running his cars already. And when we got to really struggling for, really, all of ’24, and when we tried to start the year in 2025 and we weren’t having fun, they talked to Chase, and we ended up getting a car.”
Ferguson debuted his Stinger last year over Memorial Day weekend. He thought about taking it to Wheatland but opted instead for events at Sugar Creek Raceway in Blue Ridge, Ga., and East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City, Ala.
“I was going to come here last year with that car for the first race, but I’m glad we didn't because we went to Sugar Creek and East Alabama and we had all kinds of problems,” said Ferguson, who still logged a pair of top-10 finishes. “We had little bugs, fuel pressure, everything.”
But Ferguson soon found the Stinger machine to be to his liking. He ran it in last June’s Dream at Eldora and drove up as high as second before sliding back to a 12th-place finish, which was a morale-booster considering he didn’t even qualify for the 100-lap finale the previous two years and was a DNQ for 2024’s World 100 as well.
“This car’s probably got more similarities to my Bloomquist cars than anything,” Ferguson said. “It’s got a lot of the same attributes that Scott's cars did and it feels like it. I’m kind of searching for that same feel and that’s why I feel like it works.”
The car propelled Ferguson back to victory lane twice late last year at Cherokee, first in Sept. 20’s Stick Elliott Memorial (worth $8,000) and then in Nov. 16’s Freddy Smith Memorial (a $15,000 score). He hasn’t won yet this season in 13 starts, but he’s becoming increasingly comfortable sitting inside its frame rails.
“I kind of looked back at the crown jewels that we ran last year,” Ferguson said.”The dream, I think we drove up the second at one point. Then the North-South (100 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky.), I started third (and finished 15th). The World (100) we drove up to sixth at one point (from 26th) and finished eighth. The Dirt Track World Championship (at Eldora) we were on the pole and ran in the top five the first 60 laps (before placing 12th).
“We’re close. Like I told everyone, I watched a lot of races in 2024 (as a non-qualifier) and I haven’t done that in a long time, and that was not fun. Coming to the Dream and the World and the Dirt Truck World Championship and watching those races and not making it, you know, it was not fun.”
Wheatland was evidence that Ferguson is rediscovering his old self. In Friday’s 40-lap tribute to Don & Billie Gibson, he chased flag-to-flag winner Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., and thought he might be able to offer a serious challenge but settled for a runner-up finish. He backed that up with a third-place finish in the evening’s postponed 45-lap Cowboy Classic despite beating up his car by running through some rough patches to the point that he could tell the driveshaft was just about to break, causing him to cool his jets in the closing stages.
Ferguson started 14th in the Cowboy Classic and marched quickly forward to lead laps 8-32, though he couldn’t hold as first Garrett Alberson of Las Cruces, N.M., overtook him and then eventual winner Josh Rice of Crittenden, Ky., moved by as well. But Fergy certainly felt like he was in the mix again.
“I passed a lot of really good cars,” Ferguson said. “There was some guys that have been winning a lot of races that we drove around. I really didn’t think I’d drive from 14th to the lead, but this is one of my best tracks. I felt like Scott on the starts. Like I had so much straightaway traction, I was lifting the front tires off the ground. That’s a good feeling sometimes.”
There was no magic for Ferguson in the Show-Me 100 headliner, though, as he struggled throughout the race. That was largely because of his tire choice, a decision to bolt a hard-compound 4 on the right-rear corner that proved to be incorrect.
“Me and (his cousin) Carson (Ferguson) were the only ones on a 4,” Ferguson said. “I knew from the start, when we lost three or four spots there, we were way harder than everybody else and it just hurt us. If you can hang around fifth or sixth you’re OK, but I mean, I got all the way back where I wasn’t even on the (top-10) board. I think I was back to 12th.
“About five of them that passed me, I passed them back towards the end. I got back around (Brandon) Overton at one point but then I hit the hole wrong and he got back by me.
“As far as being in contention, I was very happy,” he added. “That's when we come run these races, is when we're in contention, when I feel like if we could hit it right, we could do something. And I haven’t been that way up until last year around June.”
Ferguson is in the midst of building a new Stinger car — he might debut it at Eldora’s Dream next week if it’s completed in time — and also has a second engine joining his arsenal. Things are certainly looking up for a racer who has proven capable of battling the sport’s best while racing on a relatively modest budget.
“I always tell everybody, and I’m not going to complain about it, but we don’t have full-time employees, we don't full-time crew guys,” Ferguson said. “We’re all working, and then we go work at the races car shop at night.
“With all my guys, though, I don’t have no disadvantages. Like, everyone that helps me, whether it’s my dad (Bryan Conard), Tadpole (Martin), my brother-in-law D.J. (Williams, the former Ricky Thornton Jr. tire specialist who married Olivia Gentry last year and now operates his own consulting business) who comes to all the big races with us, they’re all real good and experienced.
“When we do come to these races, you got to be prepared. You gotta have the best of the best. Even though, like I said, we got the one car one motor right now, I feel like I can contend.
“I definitely feel way closer than I’ve been the last three years,” he continued. “I mean, there’s times where I still feel I maybe make some mistakes that I used to not make it when I was racing more, but usually by the end of the weekend I feel just as good as I've ever been. I mean, just like Eldora. When I go through the whole weekend, by Saturday, I don’t feel like I’m at a disadvantage.”
Ferguson has himself competing again. He’s anxious to continue testing himself for the remainder of 2026.
“So I feel like we’re back in a position now where we’re in the shows,” Ferguson said. “We just got to kind of get the balance back to where we want. And we were really close this weekend. Just a combination of tires and a few other things hurt us (in the 100-lapper), but it felt good to be back, and honestly, it was a confidence booster for me because I passed a lot of really good drivers.
“I mean, I had a fast car, don't get me wrong, but to drive by (Brandon) Sheppard, drive by (Hudson O’Neal), and some other really fast cars, you know, it makes you feel like, ‘Hey, I belong out here again,’ and there for about a year I didn’t feel that way. I was like, ‘Man, do I really know how to drive anymore?’
“I started second-guessing myself,” he added. “I think getting back in this car has kind of got me back feeling like, ‘Hey, this is like fun again to actually be on the same straightaway as them guys.’ ”
