Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Star by day or night:

For an open-house assignment, 7-year-old Jamie Little and her classmates drew crayon pictures and wrote captions about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Rough figures of future cops, doctors, lawyers and nurses dominated the wall.

Little's mother inched closer to the picture of a cross-eyed, topless dancer in a little blue dress before a blackened background.

"I will be a star," Jamie had written. "I will go to work at night."

She wanted to be her mother. Laura Thomas stared and thought, "Oh, no. That can't be my daughter." "Her handwriting is really improving," she said nervously.

The teacher tried to alleviate Laura's discomfort by applauding the effort, saying Jamie obviously adored and admired her. Still, Thomas knew Jamie was staring at her the whole drive home, wanting a reaction that didn't come.

Thomas told her fellow showgirls, who implored her to bring the artwork into the dressing room. It was tacked onto a bulletin board. The mascot of the Harrah's Lake Tahoe dance troupe supplied it with a motto.

The artwork hangs in a large black frame in the office of Jamie Little's home in Spanish Trail.

"Whenever any of the dancers was having a bad day, the last thing she did before she went on stage was read that," Thomas said. "She'd walk over and read the whole thing out loud, then charge down the stage with a smile."

Little, 28, landed in another constellation Thursday when ABC Sports announced that she will be one of four pit reporters for its NASCAR coverage next season.

"The 'Monday Night Football' of racing," Little said. "The pinnacle of my world."

A Green Valley High graduate, Little made history in 2004 when ABC tapped her to become the first female Indianapolis 500 pit reporter.

Eight and a half hours after the longest non-Olympic ABC broadcast, Little was drained. Her Nike Shox were worn down. Then the tornado alarms blared.

"I'm from Vegas," she said. "I didn't know what the hell a tornado alarm was. Everyone said, 'Jamie, you can't change. Get underneath the grandstand.' We were under there for an hour. It was a torrential downpour. Tornadoes touched down all outside the track.

"I thought, 'The best day of my life. Now I'm going to die.' "

Little is known for her accuracy and insight, and for her ability to think on the fly and report concisely.

When a three-year contract from ABC, of which ESPN is a subsidiary, recently arrived at Little's home, she called her mother, who married Dr. James Thomas a few years after arriving in Las Vegas in 1990. Laura Thomas reminisced about the day five years ago when Little cold-called ESPN producer Rich Feinberg for some "X Games" work.

Thomas listened from upstairs. Her daughter's timing was perfect as she highlighted what she'd done and what she could do.

"This whole career was truly done on her own," Thomas said. "She's done all this by herself, knowing people in the business and paying dues, getting little or no money at times, and getting the right people to notice her, her dedication and her hard work.

"She's become the strongest, most independent and loving, caring woman I could have hoped she would be."

Little has played an important role in James Thomas' recovery from a May stroke. Laura Thomas said her husband is making big strides in therapy. As a surgeon who expects results, though, the rehabilitation isn't happening fast enough for him.

Little travels so frequently, it's a challenge to keep the one plant in her home alive. Much of her scant free time is spent with the man she considers dad.

"They're so connected," Laura Thomas said. "She's the Rock of Gibraltar for him. It's awesome to see how she's stepped up to the plate, helping us, when she's not working."

Little recalled the nights she spent watching from a lighting booth high above the Harrah's Lake Tahoe showroom floor and marveling at her mother - the star - and her feather-frolicking friends. After every number, young Jamie soaked in the applause.

"She knocked down barriers, going from a seamstress to the lead dancer in a show," Little said. "She was always driven and worked hard. She also had a lot of fun."

Little's no different. She pulled 9 Gs in a stock-plane stall off the coast of St. Petersburg, Fla., and didn't pass out. The pilot told her that most people get sick at 5 Gs. She didn't. "I was proud of that," Little said.

She hit 120 mph at a driving school in Sonoma, Calif.; broke 170 in the passenger seat of 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier's car during a practice run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway; and rode on the back of a Kawasaki test bike that hit 185 mph at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last spring. In 2002 and '03, she won five downhill motorcycle races.

Mother cringes when she hears - always after the fact - of her daughter's latest thrill-seeking antics.

"I don't know what's in her system," Thomas said. "The excitement of it. The danger factor, I suppose. But she's loving it. Until she has children and must think of their future, she's living her dream and having fun. She's responsible, too, so I don't really worry about her."

Little is also evolving into a brand. Carter Powersports produces a Jamie Little signature 110cc minimotorcycle, she is featured on an MX World Tour video game, and Oakley (sunglasses) and Taylor Made (golf clubs) are two of her sponsors. She outdrives most other women on the Spanish Trail golf course.

In a patio chair overlooking the first fairway, Little said she's all about living life to the fullest.

"I don't let opportunities pass me by," she said. "This is my world. I know what I want. I see the picture and I know what I need to do. It's always real, it's natural and it's from the heart."

Like the drawing and words that often fueled a few showgirls 21 years ago at Lake Tahoe.

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