By Chuck Corder

Unwrapping presents around the Christmas tree are the stuff childhood memories are made of.

No matter if you celebrated with family at home or traveled for the holidays, whether the dwelling had a chimney or not, somehow Santa always found you.

For west Mobile late model driver Ryan Paul, most of his Christmases as a kid and well into his adolescence were spent at stock car racing’s version of the North Pole.

“Every year, we’d be driving to Daytona Beach,� Paul fondly recalled, traveling with his father, Willie, for the start of each go-kart racing season. “There were races all week with anywhere from 2,800 to 3,500 entries every year.�

Ryan Paul, 32, won’t have to go through nearly as many drivers Friday night at Five Flags Speedway when the Allen Turner Pro Late Model series returns for its second 100 lap race of the season.

The Faith Chapel Outlaw Stocks, The Dock on Pensacola Beach Sportsmen and the Lloyd’s Glass Pure Stocks all highlight Friday’s undercard.

Gates open at 4 p.m. Friday with PLM qualifying set for 7 and pre-race festivities beginning approximately at 8. Admission is $15 for adults; $12 for seniors, military and students; $5 for children ages 6 to 11; and free for kids 5-and-under.

Paul, who qualified and finished third in the PLM opener back in March, enjoyed testing his mettle against eventual winner Casey Roderick because his biggest areas for improvement were on full display.

“In years past, I always told my crew that we were gonna ride for the first 50 (laps) and see what we had at the end,� Paul said. “We qualified so good, that I wanted to run with that No. 18 (Roderick), and I didn’t care what I burnt up.

“I found out the hard way. But, it makes you work on own program. After 50 laps running that hard, problems reveal themselves. It has made us work harder on the longer runs. We have to be better because that 18 runs wide open. He gets it done.�

Paul has gotten it done this season thanks to some stellar results that has him as confident as he has been in a long time.

He began the year with sixth-place finish at Speedfest in Cordele, Ga., following it up with a fifth at the Baby Rattler at Opp, Ala., before coming to Pensacola to notch his first podium finish of the young season. Earlier this month, Paul returned to South Alabama Speedway and finished fourth behind some of the south’s finest late model drivers — Roderick, Jeff Choquette and Korey Ruble.

“We’ve really learned a lot about the whole ‘buck stops here’ deal,� said Paul, in his third year running his own program. “For a long time, we were working off of Bubba’s (Pollard) notebook. We’d call him and see what he had for a specific track and we’d go with that and adjust as necessary.

“Now, we’re getting better because we’re going off our own stuff. I wouldn’t be close to the driver I am today without Bubba helping me a lot. But I don’t have to bug him as much anymore.�

Paul began turning heads at the Snowflake 100 last December. He posted a fifth-place finish in the PLM race that serves as precursor to the Snowball Derby the following day.

It was a more than respectable outcome considering his barebones, family-run operation battled against late model’s toughest and well-funded teams.

“We had a good week,� said Paul, who finished eighth in the 2015 ’Flake. “We actually were top of the speed charts in Thursday and Friday’s practices. I gained a lotta respect from that run from a whole bunch of racers that I didn’t know were watching.

“Billy Melvin, somebody I’ve long respected for being a low budget racer his whole life, congratulated me, and that meant a lot coming from that guy.�

Like the youth he spent running go-karts to state and national championships, Paul has simplified things in recent years. Willie goes to his son’s home, which includes an expansive race shop in one wing, throughout the week to help with the car’s setup and a few friends are religious about coming to the track on race days to lend their hands.

It wasn’t long ago that Paul wasn’t racing at all. He decided to step away from driving when he couldn’t get the investment and support from the car owners he was driving for and believed he was due.

“When stuff went south, I took a break from racing all together,� said Paul, whose wife, Brook, and stepdaughter Tinsley support him. “I built my own shop where I could do my own deal. It has been a blessing, for sure. It’s so nice to be able to make my own calls.

“And in the last six months, I’ve begun working on other people’s stuff in addition to mine.�

A head operator of a printing press for Ampac at Mobile’s Brookley Field, Paul’s days typically begin when he wakes up at 4:30 a.m. each morning. After a 12-hour day, he returns home where he works on his and other racecars deep into the night.

While the schedule sounds excruciating, this has been Paul’s dream since he was little.

“I bought three acres near the Alabama/Mississippi state border,� he said. “My neighbor lives in Mississippi. I’m the last address in Alabama.�

Working shoulder-to-shoulder with his dad nearly every day, Paul feels like his life has come full circle.

“(Willie) got me a yard kart when I was 3, and I started riding it immediately,� Ryan Paul said. “I pushed him for me to race and it all kinda went downhill from there.�

When he was racing go-karts competitively growing up, Ryan and Willie would be gone from Mobile two to three weekends a month. They’d park the trailer on Thursday, and before they’d race later in the week, the pair often went sightseeing in places, such as Charlotte, N.C.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Valdosta, Ga.; Tallahassee; and in Northern Virginia among other venues.

“If I didn’t learn anything, I learned how to read a map,� Paul said.

All points have led Ryan Paul back to his roots where he has rediscovered his love for the sport.