Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Another PPMS opener, another victory
In a new feature appearing regularly on DirtonDirt, senior writer Kevin Kovac will offer readers five things worth mentioning from around the Dirt Late Model landscape (index to previous Take Fives):
No. 1: Michael Norris of Sarver, Pa., made a satisfying return to competition Saturday at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, winning the 30-lap Pot of Gold Super Late Model feature in his first start since last Aug. 29. The 33-year-old decided to cut short his 2025 racing schedule after sustaining a mild concussion in a wild series of flips over the turn-three berm of his hometown track, Lernerville Speedway, during the opening-night feature of last year’s Hillbilly Hundred. His Rocket Chassis fielded by his brother-in-law, Nico Dabecco, was destroyed in the accident; Dabecco obtained a new Rocket XR2 frame in the offseason and Norris promptly drove it to $4,000 triumph in the PPMS season opener. It was the second Super Late Model checkered flag Norris has recorded for Dabecco, who in recent years has teamed with Norris to capture several Crate Late Model specials. Norris said he still has his family-owned Rocket No. 72 and plans to split time between it and Dabecco’s car with Lernerville likely remaining his weekly focus.
No. 2: The PPMS success for Norris marked the third straight year that he’s kicked off the Imperial, Pa., half-mile oval’s campaign with a victory in the Pop of Gold event contested near St. Patrick’s Day. What’s interesting is that he’s recorded the triumphs with three different teams: Todd Cerenzia’s No. 02, his family’s machine and Dabecco’s No. 1.
No. 3: Drake Troutman of Hyndman, Pa., has been quite consistent with his Team 22 Inc. equipment so far this season — he has seven top-five and 16 top-10 finishes in 32 starts, including — but he ran into a rough patch over the past week. Before the weekend’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series doubleheader at Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss., even started, the 20-year-old hurt an engine during midweek testing, forcing his crew chief, Hunter Cornell, to retrieve another car at team owner G.R. Smith’s shop in Cornelius, N.C., and bring it to Magnolia. Troutman then led early in Friday’s 40-lap feature before a deflating tire contributed to him fading to a sixth-place finish, and in Saturday’s finale he was running fourth midway through the 60-lapper when he retired with a retired with a smoking engine that signaled his second terminal powerplant malfunction in a handful of days. With a team social media post indicating that they now have three motors out for repairs, they’ll have some regrouping ahead before this weekend’s WoO twinbill at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City and Senoia (Ga.) Raceway.
No. 4: While Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ill., managed only modest finishes of 16th and seventh in the WoO features at Magnolia, he at least left Mississippi with his equipment in one piece. That wasn’t the case the previous week when crashes in consecutive WoO programs — a heat-race incident March 13 at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn., and a devastating wreck that saw him spin and get T-boned in the right side by leader Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., with two laps remaining the following night at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn. — left him in need of an unscheduled midweek trip to Rocket Chassis in Shinnston, W.Va. The 53-year-old former WoO champion worked with the Rocket staff to repair the car that was damaged at Volunteer and build a brand-new machine so he’d be ready for Magnolia. The Smoky Mountain vehicle’s frame was too beaten up for a quick fix, though Rocket co-owner Mark Richards said it was actually “not as bad as I thought it would be” following the high-speed hit from Overton.
No. 5: Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., doesn’t have concrete plans to defend his Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series championship, but he kept his options open by entering the circuit’s opening points race at Talladega Short Track in Eastaboga, Ala. The 54-year-old standout loaded a Rocket Chassis and Vic Hill engine provided by Koehler Motorsports into a hauler borrowed from Hill, who accompanied Owens to the race to tune on the powerplant and lend an extra hand. Owens relied on a provisional to start the 50-lap Bama Bash feature and was an early retiree. Owens has three weeks to put together a program he feels can contend for the title before the Hunt the Front tour returns to action April 10-11 at North Georgia Speedway in Chatsworth, Ga.
Editor's note: Fixes spelling of Dabecco
