Every driver who’s ever raced at Eldora Speedway has a recollection of the first time they tackled the legendary high-banked, half-mile oval in Rossburg, Ohio. Typically they hold vivid memories of the milestone moment — or at least the feeling of anticipation and fear that swept over them as they took their initial laps.

“It definitely gets your attention,” said Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., whose Eldora debut came more than 20 years ago.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” retired Hall of Famer Bob Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., said of his first Big E attempt at the 1978 World 100. “It scared the s--- out of me.”

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Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., recalled having goosebumps on his arms as he embarked upon his first laps at the 2006 Dream: “Hell, I still get ‘em rolling out for hot laps” even as the certified Eldora master he’s become with eight career 100-lap victories.

“It’s an intimidating deal,” said Gordy Gundaker of St. Charles, Mo., whose Eldora lifespan only dates back to the 2015 World 100. “You’re so raced up and amped up for it, but you can feel the aura around it. You know all the greats have been there and won and the history behind the place.”

Perhaps the most succinct summation of how Eldora blows a first-timer’s mind — the campers outside the track, the steep banks, the covered grandstands, the hillside bleachers in the corners, the unmistakable big-race atmosphere — was provided by three-time World 100 champion Jeff Purvis of Crossville, Tenn., in a 2021 interview with DirtonDirt.com before the running of the 50th World 100.

“I had an impression of that place before I saw it,” said Purvis, who debuted at Eldora in the 1982 World 100. “I mean, I’d listened to people (talk about the track), and it was always like a dream I’d go there. I’d always heard about it, and I was nervous to ever see it, I really was. I was nervous to just pull in there. You didn’t have all the cameras and the videos and everything what you have today (to know what the facility looked like).

“And when I saw it, I immediately fell in love with the surroundings. When we pulled over the racetrack in the hauler, it was like, ‘Man!’ I was in awe of what I was seeing. It was that date that you’d always wanted, but when you got there, you thought, Man, I’m over my head here. And I really did think that.”

Typically Humble Beginnings

The Holy Grail of Eldora debuts belongs to Scott Bloomquist of Mooresburg, Tenn., who arrived at the 1988 World 100 as a floppy-haired 24-year-old who had just begun to venture away from his local tracks five years after relocating from California. He had never even seen the track yet put together a magical performance to claim the $21,000 first-place prize.

Bloomquist would later admit that he “thought we had bit off a little more than we can chew” when he pulled through Eldora’s pit gate and saw all the cars and people and glimpsed the magnitude of the event, but he handled the moment with aplomb. He also went on make his name synonymous with Eldora success, capturing more crown jewel triumphs at the track (eight Dreams, four World 100s) than any other driver.

And Purvis, too, was spectacular in his first Eldora appearance as 23-year-old in 1982. With some prodding from late chassis builder C.J. Rayburn, Purvis took his father’s equipment to the World 100 to “try this thing.” The 127-car field, the facility and the racetrack overwhelmed him.

“I pulled up there and saw that racetrack and it scared me to death,” Purvis, now 65, told DirtonDirt.com in 2021. “I thought, What have I done? But for whatever reason, I was extremely fast there. It didn’t fit my driving. It was a faster track than I’d ever been on for sure. But I immediately was fast.”

Alas, Purvis fell short of beating Bloomquist to the punch of winning a World 100 debut, but only because of bad luck. He had to pit shortly after passing Charlie Swartz for the lead midway through the race because he was black-flagged for a flapping rear spoiler, then rallied from the rear and was closing on leader Mike Duvall when mechanical trouble ruined his hopes for an improbable victory.

“I had run Duvall down and I was trying to pass him (in the final laps) and I had a fuel pickup problem or something, and all of a sudden the car started sputtering and missing and just basically quit coming down the front straightaway and I started coasting into the pits,” Purvis recalled. “Then I clutched it — they don’t even really have a clutch anymore — but I clutched it and it started back up, so I pulled back on the racetrack and it was still under green and I took off again. And I ran him back down and he beat me across the finish line by a half a car length.”

Second place in the World 100 with no previous Eldora experience? That’s still incredible, and it signaled the glory to come for Purvis: three World 100 victories over the next four years (’83, ’84, ’86) and a runner-up finish in ’85.

But Bloomquist and Purvis are aberrations. Eldora debuts are rarely so spectacular. Most typically, even drivers who later reach the Eldora winner’s stage slide in-and-out of the track in humble fashion upon their first appearances.

Take Davenport, for instance. He’s become Mr. Eldora over the past decade — five World 100 victories, two Dreams (including last year), the 2022 Eldora Million and 2020’s Intercontinental Classic — but he barely made an impact when tried his hand at the 2006 Dream as an upstart 22-year-old Dirt Late Model racer still early in his crossover from asphalt competition.

“I didn’t have any business being there,” said Davenport, who failed to qualify for the 100-lapper. “I was so green. I just raced in the Carolinas, mostly at smaller tracks. I was way over my head.”

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Dear Eldora: Racers Share Their Love For Eldora Speedway 

Earl Pearson Jr. of Jacksonville, Fla., the 2006 World 100 winner, was 25 years old and just beginning to spread his wings as a Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series traveler when he signed in for his first Eldora action at the 1997 World 100. Driving for Night Moves Racing — a Jacksonville-based team fielded by a friend of legendary rock-and-roll star Bob Seger — he didn’t make the headliner after an eye-opening weekend.

“Back then it was like 200 cars (242 entered the ’97 World 100) and you’re just so nervous, sitting in line fixing to qualify,” said Pearson, who recalled pulling into the pits with his 28-foot enclosed trailer and his father by his side. “Then right before you get on the racetrack you watch them go by out there and they’re that far from the wall (holding his fingers inches apart), and you’re thinking, Holy hell, I’m fixing to go out here and do this at 150 mph.

“I grew up at (Georgia’s Golden Isles Speedway which was then a huge, 5/8-mile mile oiled dirt track) so I was used to the speed, but not up against the wall. Back where I come from it was just wide open (with no outside walls) … you just run off the track. That was the most nerve-racking thing — you had to be so close to the wall and not be scared of it. You just go in there and hope like hell it turns.

“Back when I started going, you never used to see us going around the bottom,” he continued.“You had to be right there, that close (to the outside wall). You’re gonna hit it. It’s just a matter of how hard, and I hit it hard a few times.”

Pearson noted “it took me several years before I made a race” — and in fact, it was the 2002 Dream that marked his first feature start.

Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., meanwhile, showed himself in Eldora crown jewel competition for the first time as an 18-year-old at 2011’s World 100. He actually had turned a few laps at Eldora in the previous year’s UMP DIRTcar Fall Nationals, but problems in his heat race put that visit in the further recesses of his mind. The World 100 was more memorable, albeit still relatively quiet for a driver who would go on to win the 2019 Dream.

“That year I was out on the road a bunch, had a few good runs, like Cedar Lake (Speedway’s USA Nationals in 2011),” said Sheppard, who drove a pink-colored Bob Pierce Race Car in his first World 100. “I had been there a bunch since my dad (Steve Sheppard Jr.) had raced there a few times, and I was finally ready to go try it.”

Calling Eldora a “surreal experience” and “probably the most intimidating place you go to,” Sheppard crossed the finish line in a B-main one spot short of transferring to the World 100. But Clint Smith was disqualified for weighing in light at the scales and “I made the show,” he said of what would be a respectable 16th-place feature finish (two laps down). “It was pretty cool.”

Sheppard’s rival from the Land of Lincoln, Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., tested himself at Eldora for the first time at the 2013 Dream after he had celebrated his 16th birthday — the track's minimum competitive age — the previous November. The future World 100 winner — he became the race’s youngest winner in 2016 at 19 — had more laps to get accustomed to the track than his predecessors because Eldora altered the format in ’13 to include two preliminary programs with twin 25-lap semifeatures, but he received a rude introduction.

“I hit the wall in qualifying on like my second lap (of Thursday’s first preliminary program),” Pierce said, shaking his head in disgust at the memory. “I smoked it in turn three. But back then it was a little different too I feel like … that’s back when it was sketchy. You had to be right up there on the wall. I was trying to not lift, and I didn’t quite have the experience yet.

“It was a pretty crazy feeling. I’d been there at least once a year since I was born, whether it was for my dad or watching races when I was growing. When I watched as a little kid, we’d get there and walk up in the turn three and four area and watch the cars going around the track. At the time, I was like, ‘Wow, this thing would be crazy to race out there. A little frightening, how big it was.’

“Then when I first got out there (as a driver), I guess I was trying too hard,” he added. “After that, I kind of stayed more to the middle of the track, and then when I came back to the World (in September 2013) I was a little better because that was later in the year and I had more experience (he finished fourth in the finale).

Pierce’s father Bob remembered how Bobby “knocked the rear end out of the car” in that 2013 accident. He had warned him about running too hard right of the gate, but he couldn’t get too down on his son. Bob’s first time at Eldora went only marginally better at the 1978 World 100.

“I was a hammer-down driver, and I went down that backstretch and I thought I was flying,” Bob recalled of his first tours around the half-mile. “I think I hit the brakes so hard I about threw myself out of the seat by the (crossover) gate back there. I go, ’S---, I ain’t even made it to the corner yet!’”

The elder Pierce didn’t qualify for the feature in his debut at the track he had discovered during his third year as a driver.

“Me and a buddy of mine drove over and watched just a regular show,” Bob said. “They had all kinds of mixtures of race cars then (early ‘70s). You didn’t know what a Late Model was back then.

“Then I went in ’78. It was an old Howe car, old Camaro bodies on them back then, and there were a lot of big-blocks back then so I had a 454 (engine). But we didn’t know what we were doing. I thought I’d better get my money saved up, get a better motor, and learn some stuff, get on some half-miles, before going back.”

Bob didn’t return to Eldora until 1982. He broke a motor running second in his heat, then had engine trouble again keep him out of the World 100 feature in ’83 running a wedge-style car. Finally, in ’84, he made the big show and finished third. He never won a crown jewel, but he flirted with victory several times and registered a combined four top-five finishes in the track’s pair of major events before retiring after the 2003 season.

Seizing Opportunities

Mike Marlar didn’t grow up with any knowledge of Eldora Speedway and its prestigious September event. He was a teenager when he finally discovered it.

“I had never heard of the World 100,” Marlar said. “When I was a kid, we rode dirt bikes and stuff on Sundays in the woods, and my dad had a car we raced back when I was like 3 years old. Until my dad started racing a second time, when I was like 14, I’d never even heard of the World 100.

“I remember we went to the racetrack (for his father’s race night) and they had the lineup qualifying sheet for the World 100 and I asked a guy, ‘What is this?’ He said, ‘That’s some race they’re having in a cornfield in Ohio.’ ”

Some time in the future, Marlar bought a VHS tape of the 1995 World 100 won by the late Jack Boggs and he “would watch that over and over and just thought it was a pretty crazy deal.” He received his opportunity to race at Eldora in 2001, when he was still focused on open-wheel modifieds, in a Late Model that was a collaborative effort among C.J. Rayburn, Wayne Bowen and Clyde Bush of AMS Engines.

“I didn’t even have a trailer, nothing, so Jeff Gullett and Timmy Yeager hauled my car, C.J.’s car, up there from Wayne Bowen’s shop,” Marlar said. “I was all excited about going around there. Actually back then it was pretty sketchy because there was no other option than to run right against the fence, but I qualified through the two rounds and I was in the deal (Saturday’s heat races).

“I remember Freddy Smith being beside me or behind me, and we took off and just were zinging around there as fast as I’d even done anything in my life. Then I went and hit the brakes going in the first corner and broke a brakeline and the whole party was over. I didn’t crash, but I couldn’t race anymore.

“And I never went back until ’03,” he added, “and I drove the Estes Engine (house) car and made the show (finishing 19th in the World 100).”

Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., has among the most unusual Eldora origin stories. In 2002 he was a big-block modified regular when the Super DIRTcar Series scheduled a late-September debut for the Northeast-based division at Eldora. T-Mac ended up pulling double-duty, gaining access to the Sweeteners Plus team’s Late Model — he wasn’t yet racing a modified for the team but was friends with driver Vic Coffey and other members of the crew — to give full-fender action a try in the Johnny Appleseed Classic that was also part of the event.

“I was very nervous,” said McCreadie, who compared the feeling to making his first laps in a modified around the 1-mile New York State Fairgrounds oval in Syracuse, N.Y. “I didn’t even really know any Late Model guys. We just went in the Sweeteners shop and put a body on it and took it there. We didn’t even really talk to anybody about it. We just took the Rocket (Chassis) setup book and just put it what it said was the setup.

“I didn’t make the show. I went out there to qualify in the Late Model and, of course, they have a foot clutch, instead of a hand clutch like a modified. It was one lap of qualifying, and I went down there and I almost hit the wall because I pushed the clutch down instead of the brake going into turn three. I got to wheel-warping and I almost clipped a guy that was pulling in the infield. It was such a horrible lap that I timed about dead last.”

McCreadie rallied to end up one spot short of transferring in a B-main. He joined the Sweeteners Plus team in 2003 for big-block action and went Late Model racing with the Avon, N.Y.-based operation the following season, which included his first Eldora crown jewel start in 2004’s Dream (he finished seventh). Now, at 50, he’s a three-time national touring champion and a perennial contender at Eldora with a 2018 World 100 victory highlighting his resume.

Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., who won last year’s World 100, arrived as an Eldora competitor September 2016 with a famous last name (his father Don won the Dream in 2011) and plenty of Eldora visits under his belt (he started attending races there before he could even walk) but just a modicum of Super Late Model experience.

In fact, on Sept. 4, 2016, O’Neal entered the Baltes Classic on Sunday of Labor Day weekend just 24 hours after finishing second in his Super Late Model debut at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway. Technically he wasn’t even of legal age to race at Eldora since his 16th birthday was the following day, but he fibbed a bit in order to race.

“We raced Brownstown on Saturday — that was my first Super race — and I ran second,” said O’Neal, now 23 and the reigning Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion. “When we got back to the shop, (car owner) Todd Burns, he looked at me and he said, ‘You think you could hold your own at Eldora?’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. Eldora’s a lot different from Brownstown.’ Those were the words I used, and he said, ‘Well, let’s go try.’

“We didn’t have any tires to go, so we stayed up all night getting stuff ready.”

While O’Neal didn’t qualify for the Baltes Classic — his car’s battery went bad as he led his heat — he tasted the scary exhilaration of racing at Eldora.

“What I remember especially, the first time I pulled out there it was, like, tunnel vision,” said O’Neal, who returned a few days later for the World 100 weekend and, while he didn’t qualify for the big show, made noise by setting second-fastest time to his father on Friday and finishing 11th and 22nd in the semifeatures. “I was going so fast down the straightaway, everything felt like it was just blurring by. All I’d ever drove was a Crate car other than the Super at Brownstown, which is one of the slower places we go.

“I remember it being so fast, I could hardly see the wall. It was an experience.”

Gundaker, who like O’Neal grew up attending Eldora events in which his father, Kevin, competed, raced for several years before he climbed in a car for Eldora’s 2015 World 100.

“That was the year right after I got out of college,” said Gundaker, 31. “We had said we were not gonna do it until we thought we were ready. That was (Kevin’s) thing — it’s a demanding place. You can’t just show up there not prepared. We had one of those conversations: ‘I think you’re ready, let’s go try it.’ So we put all new everything on the car, all the stuff you need to do before running there.”

The skill it takes to circle Eldora was quickly apparent to Gundaker.

“Running the fence at that place is not for the weak of heart,” he said. “Some of these guys make it look easy, and it’s not easy.”

Gundaker qualified for both of his semifeatures, finishing 13th Thursday and 20th in the prelim that was postponed to Saturday afternoon by rain. He event led the early laps of his prelim heat Saturday afternoon.

“I was in a Pierce car, and my old man back then, he didn’t believe in three-wheel brakes,” Gundaker said. “I didn’t have a three-wheel brake switch, so I qualified running around there wide-open, clean to a curb, and then (in the heat) I’m running with four-wheel brakes trying to run the top. I’m just holding on for dear life, and Josh (Richards) slid me (for the lead) and then I was so nervous they were gonna swarm me I slid myself in three and four and Eddie Carrier (Jr.) passed me at the line. I run third and made the race, but I didn’t make the big race.”

Gundaker is still looking for his first start in an Eldora crown jewel finale, but his love for Eldora has only grown since 2015. He also offered drivers who will make their first Eldora appearances during this week’s 30th Dream activities an appropriate description of what they can expect to feel.

“When you roll on there the first time out of the gate and up on the racetrack, and you see the stands and the scoreboard and all that stuff, you think, This is cool,” Gundaker said. “And then first time you pick the gas up and run around there wide-open, it gets your attention and you realize how cool it really is. It’s just an amazing place.”