Norris hopes to direct himself to Victory Lane at LVMS

Friday, April 12, 2002 | 9:27 a.m.

If you go

Eric Norris has spent so much time in Las Vegas recently that the 36-year-old Southern California native is beginning to look at Saturday's NASCAR Winston West Series race at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as a "home" race.

Norris, the son of actor Chuck Norris, has spent the past month in Las Vegas directing a movie for Showtime. In fact, he is taking the day off from filming on Saturday so he can compete in the Orleans 222 at the 3/8-mile paved oval.

As soon as he graduated from high school, Norris followed his famous father into show business -- first as a stunt man, then as a stunt coordinator and director on the TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger." But after nearly 20 years of splitting his time between the entertainment industry and racing, Norris said he is ready to put all of his efforts into racing.

"When I was doing 'Walker,' I was so busy as a stunt coordinator and I would direct a bunch of episodes and then going off racing, it was pretty hectic," Norris said. "But since the series ended, it hasn't been too bad.

"I really wanted to take the whole year and really focus on racing because our goal is to go (to the NASCAR Busch Series) next year," Norris said. "I wanted to focus on just racing and let my movie business take a back seat, but then this (Showtime) project came up and it was only a couple months, so I took it."

Norris has raced fulltime in the Winston West Series since 1998 with one win, 11 top-five and 22 top-10 finishes in 54 starts. His best finish in the championship was fifth place last season.

Norris said his father -- who is planning to come to Las Vegas for Saturday's race -- is supportive of the fact that he wants to give up show business for a career in racing. Chuck Norris raced boats and off-road trucks earlier in his career.

"My goal is to go racing and make a living at racing," Norris said. "I think, at first, that maybe he was a little concerned that I might get hurt (racing), but he sees how much I enjoy it and how much I love it -- and he can't gripe too much because of everything he has done, so he's 100-percent supportive now."

The first thing Norris did before he signed on to direct the Showtime movie was to get the producer to agree to give him this Saturday off so he could drive his Jani-King Ford in the 222-lap Winston West race at The Bullring.

Norris comes into the race tied for second in series points after winning the pole and finishing third in the season opener at Phoenix International Raceway in February.

"We were good in Phoenix," Norris said. "We had a real good chance at winning the race but we didn't get the cautions the way we wanted them. We raced real strong, though.

"Our goal is to win the championship this year, so it was a good start."

Norris finished 22nd out of 26 cars last year in his first race at The Bullring, but said he is looking forward to driving on the short track.

"I like The Bullring," Norris said. "We had a really fast car last year but there was a bunch of oil on the track and we didn't qualify well because it was like driving on ice. Then we got caught up in a crash early so it was really disappointing.

"It's a great track and it's real similar to (Mesa Marin Raceway in) Bakersfield, where we won a couple years ago."4Eric Norris