It was back in 2009 when we first met Channing Conley at Citrus County Speedway for a CFWS show. He was a nice talkative young chap with a slightly tore up sprint car. We had our concerns about young Channing after that night but he made us eat our words when he roared to an upset CFSS victory at Punta Gorda Speedway last year. This year Channing is putting a wing on his new Hurricane chassis and going TBARA racing.

Ladies and gentlemen, the comedic stylings of Channing Conley!

For those fans not familiar with your background, tell us a little about your karting exploits and your jump up to sprint cars. We started karting when I was 8 years old at Speedway Park in Fruitland Park. We won a few championships there and in Ocala. We then moved on to some state racing series, FKA & FDDS. We won a few races and lost a bunch. Our engine builder at the time, Blaze Martin, talked us into taking the huge leap into sprint cars. We were thinking about starting in a lower class/division. He told us, if sprint cars are where we really want to end up, then don’t waste time anywhere else, so that’s what we did. We’ve known Dude Teate for awhile, so we asked him if he knew anybody that had a car for sale and he got us hooked up with Brad Davis and Jerry Stuckey. It wasn’t much to look at, but it sure got us started. Without them we wouldn’t be as far along as we are now.

Tell us a little about your current chassis you’re getting ready to roll out. We hear a certain driver we speak very highly of used to drive it a few years ago. Oh Yeah, we finally got a chassis that’s not 23 years old! Believe it or not David Steele won his first race in our old one when he was, uhh, young lol. Anyway, our new piece is a new Hurricane and it’s so much nicer than our other one. Don’t get me wrong, we actually won in the old Staf chassis but it took a lot of work and a ton of luck. His Holiness David Steele helped us get into this new ride. I believe Sport Allen used to drive it and I think Brian Maddox owned it. According to David it has only got about 15 races on it. We’ve got to give a BIG thanks to David and his sidekick Lazy Larry. If it wasn’t for them, this wouldn’t have happened for us. We couldn’t have done it without their help. They changed all of our new parts over from the old chassis and got it set up. We actually went to Desoto this past Monday (before New Smyrna) and got to practice it. Wow, what a difference!!! It’s so much smoother of a ride. Now if we could just find some sponsorship to help with a motor, our world would be a better place.

You won our award for “Most Improved Driver” for 2010. What did you and your team in 2010 to get your program pointed in the right direction? 2009 was a little rough for you guys. Everything, I think. We finally got some brakes on that thing, for starters. It was pretty much always fairly quick; I just couldn’t get it to stop! We did ALOT of upgrading, new brakes, rear end, front end, etc. You name it and we replaced it or at least rebuilt it. We also practiced a ton! We probably practiced nearly 800 laps, just at Citrus County. We were there every practice night they had for awhile. We also asked a lot of questions, and then practiced some more. Leroy and Dude were a BIG help! They are some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Leroy would help us set up the car and even showed us the proper way to adjust the valves, among many other things. There were even times we would called “David’s tech support line” while we were at the track. That was another big help! I think he might regret giving us his cell number though, because we wore it out some nights, especially the night we won at Punta Gorda in CFSS!! It was only our fifth full race we competed in. We would also like to thank Don Rehm for helping us learn the ropes. He and his series were always very professional and all of the drivers were very helpful.

We hear you graduated high school early. So far Amanda Ferguson has the highest GPA of any sprint car driver we’ve ever talked to, with a 4.4. How do you stack up? Well I’m here to tell you, man I did pretty darn good. I mean I can’t remember what the number was, but man it was up there. I mean it wasn’t no 4.4 or anything… but it was up there. I’ve been out of high school for so many months now and the grade just escapes me right now, but it was.. ya know okay. If I remember right it was like umm a 3 or nearly a 4, or something like……. that plus or minus a few…… ya know. Ummm…so…what was the question again?

We also hear you’re a mean guitar player. Do you sit around and play Yngwie Malmsteen songs for fun? Sometimes, man he is really good, although I’m not quite that good yet. I do like to jam some Metallica, Alice in Chains, maybe a little Megadeth and sometimes All That Remains. And maybe a lil Skynard now and again and my Dad really likes it when I play “Simple Man.” I’ve been playing since I was around 10 or 11. I’ve got about 4 guitars and a bass. I took a few years of lessons, but just like anything though, its practice, practice, practice. My parents have been pretty cool about it through the years, I can play as much as I want and they don’t make me shut it down unless it gets real late or real loud. I’ve been trying to talk them into a set of drums lately, but they haven’t given in yet. I’ll keep trying though.

Rumor has it you are eyeballing putting a wing on and running some winged shows. Care to expound? Yup, that was something else David hooked us up with. We plan on running all of the TBARA races, if the funds allow it. That’s what we actually got to practice with this past week at Desoto. We’ve got a few wingless races under our belt and hopefully we’re ready to go get our butts kicked by the big boys. We’ll be at News Smyrna this weekend and with any luck we can make the trip up to north Florida. Rumor has it, that Desoto is trying to get some races together. I hope so, that is a fun track.

You’re the only sprint car driver we’ve ever heard of named Channing. Is that a family name? Was your mom a big Stockard Channing fan? A Carol Channing fan perhaps? Actually my mom was a big soap opera fan when she was young, yeah!  She says there was a very popular soap opera back in the day (really?) that had some guy on there with my name and she thought it was different/cool. So that’s how I got my name. It’s not that I mind my name, it’s just how she came up with it. A soap opera? Come on mom! It could be worse though, my Dad was born on the same street he lived on when he was a kid, they just spelled it different. Talk about being creative. I guess he didn’t figure it out until he learned to read though..

Being a teenager, we’re assuming if you go out on a date with a comely young lass that surely the first date somehow involves buffalo wings. Where is your favorite place to score some buffalo wings, before you, uh, score… Who says you don’t score before you go get the wings? I really like Hooters and I’m pretty sure they serve wings there too. We stop there every time we go to Daytona, my dad thinks it’s a sin not to stop every…single…time we go to the beach or a race over there. I also go to the one in Orlando from time to time after work with my buds Mike, Justin, Danny and Tony, it’s always a good time! I guess my favorite though is Gators Dockside in Tavares. Sometimes me and my buddies will go there for the .25 cent wings night and try to make them lose money on their special. One night I ate almost 70 wings! They’ve got every kind you can imagine and they are great, although the scenery isn’t as plentiful as Hooters, it’s a lot closer to home.

What is your long term racing plan? Well, we’re going to spend at least few more years in sprints and hopefully one day soon get to run the Little 500. It takes a lot of money to go big time and without sponsors these days it’s almost impossible. We’ll just keep plugging along and see what life brings us. If nothing else we’ll keep racing sprints as long as we can. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had on four wheels with my clothes on…Giggity Giggity.

Let’s say I’m in need of hiring a good cleaning service company, know of any reputable ones? Well the best one in  the state, from what I hear, is TLC Cleaning. They do an awesome job! Although they do most of their work in the Villages, for the right price they would go just about anywhere to work. They’ve been in business nearly 10 years and do a lot of work in that retirement community. My Mom actually owns it and if it wasn’t for her and my Dad, none of this would be possible. I would like to thank them for everything they’ve done for my racing career. They spent a lot of time and money on me and I want to let them know how much I really appreciate it. I would also like to thank my Aunt Tina for always being there and my cousin Anthony; they have always been my biggest fans!!