MILFORD, Conn. (AP) – Years of outdoor sports like hunting and motorcycling seem to have agreed with Laura Clark, age 102. She still makes twice weekly visits to the Milford Senior Center for bingo games, keeping track of six cards at once.

“I used to take 10 cards,” she said in a strong, high almost falsetto voice. “But now they call them so fast I can only take six.”

And her interest in motor sports remains high as a big fan of NASCAR racer Jeff Gordon.

“I’ve been watching Jeff Gordon since he first started,” Clark said with a giggle. “He doesn’t know me, but I know him. I call him my man. He doesn’t know I call him my man. After all, he’s got a wife and kids.”

She wore a pink blouse and white pants as the fan blew away the hot afternoon air in the kitchen of her Devon home. Her small Cape Cod house was full of paintings and pictures along with deer trophy heads.

“Wilbur and I used to take motorcycle trips to Maine to hunt,” she said of her husband, who died 20 years ago. “That trophy in the breezeway was a 200-pounder. We made a coat out of him.”

The couple never had any children. Clark lives by herself. A cousin from Stratford calls her up daily and takes her out on errands. Milford Senior Center delivers food she warms up in her oven.

Paintings in her home of 60 years show deer jumping through fields and over logs. A black and white picture has her and Wilbur dressed in checkered wool hunting gear, standing proudly next to the hanging carcasses of two deer they just shot. Another photo shows them astride their two Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

“We had a motorcycle club. We would go watch races in different states, me riding on the back of his. I only rode mine around Milford,” she said. “That was many years ago. My husband’s been gone 20 years, so it’s way before that.”

She still likes to keep busy. Besides twice a week visits to Milford Senior Center, she also drops into Devon Seniors once a week at the Margaret Egan Center.

At home she plays solitaire and word game puzzles and watches television, never missing a NASCAR race.

Anne-Marie Ventimiglia, one of the bus drivers who picks up Clark for her biweekly trips to the Milford Senior Center, was astounded to find another NASCAR fan in Milford.

“There’s not many NASCAR fans up north,” said Ventimiglia of the car racing sport mainly popular in southern states. “She rode a motorcycle. I ride a motorcycle. We just click when we get together.”

Ventimiglia said Clark spotted her two years ago wearing a jacket honoring Tony Stewart, another major NASCAR driver. They have been close ever since.

“Whenever I see her, we sit and talk about the last race,” Ventimiglia said. “It’s like a rivalry between Gordon and Stewart, like the Yankees and Red Sox. She knows all about Jeff, about when he got married and when he had a baby.”

Mary Steinmetz, the senior center’s program director, believes Clark is probably the oldest who attends programs on a regular basis. “She walks with a walker, but she’s very sharp,” Steinmetz said. “She’s been very interested in life, which is a good attitude to have. She’s been coming for years, and it’s great to have her here.”

Senior center Director Janice Jackson said the center sees more people living longer, productive lives. She noted the center employs two people who are both 95 years old and live alone.

“Usually, it’s the same answer for living so long: stay active and interact with people,” Jackson said. “We’re glad the senior center can serve that function. You just don’t need to sit at home.”

Back home, the telephone rings and Clark doesn’t answer because the caller ID screen announces an “unknown caller.”

“I don’t need no mortgage. I don’t need no furniture. I don’t need nothing,” noted Clark on her reaction to telemarketers. “If I need something, I’ll call somebody up. I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I’ve been in the hospital a few times, but I come out and enjoy life.”

AP-ES-08-18-07 1233EDT