CHRIS FERGUSON - THE NATURAL By Doug Kennedy
ROBERT REDFORD PORTRAYED Roy Hobbs in the 1984 movie “The Natural” and garnered that nickname with the effortless ease he played the game of baseball. Chris Ferguson displays a similar ease with the way he handles and his race team, on and off the racetrack. “I think the fans kind of relate to me,” said Ferguson, who lives in Mt. Holly, North Carolina, after being born and raised in Charlotte. “I’ve built my race team up over the last 12 years and have come a long way from where I started. Now that I’ve got a lot of experience under my belt, it’s not as challenging to go to new and different tracks as it was when I first started.” Kelley Carlton, the series director for the Ultimate Southeast Series has watched Chris race since he was about ten years old. “He’s a natural talent going back to his karting days,” Carlton said. “I was there for his first crate late model race. Most guys who get into a
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late model develop habits from driving another type of car. He made the transition so smoothly. He figured out what the car needed to be fast and how to drive the car almost immediately.” “Chris also interacts extremely well with sponsors and fans,” Carlton, who used to be the Southern All-Stars director from 2000 to 2010, said. “He really engages the fans and his sponsors.” Ferguson is also known as somewhat of an easy-going person. “I take after my mom (Allison),” Ferguson related. “She’s always friendly to whomever she meets. I take after her personality and I’m an easy-going type of guy.” His racing program has also grown over the last few years. “I’ve always tended to take care of my equipment,” said the 31-year-old Ferguson. “For the longest time, I didn’t have a spare car or spare parts. I got a second car in 2019. Now, we also have our spare parts. We can almost rebuild the car at the
DIRT EMPIRE MAGAZINE • ISSUE 04 - 2021
Photo: Heath Lawson
a main FEATURE
LATE MODEL
racetrack if needed. It gives you an ease of mind to have those spare parts and that allows me to maybe take a few more chances. It also affects my driving style because I’m normally a calculating type of driver but now I can be a little more aggressive when needed.” Ferguson is a third generation racer. His grandfather Blair raced in the 1960s and 1970s in a six-cylinder car and his father, Bryan, had more than 100 feature wins in a four-cylinder car and a go-kart. In one season alone, Bryan had 30 wins and also won the World 4 Cylinder Championship. Chris’s younger brother, Brandon Conard, also raced but quit once he rolled his kart after about 10 races. (The reason for the different last names is that when Chris was born, his parents were not married yet so he chose to take the last name of his mother, Ferguson, while Brandon took the family and dad’s name of Conard.) Everything for Chris began in 2002
