One of my first memories of David Gentry wasn't a good one. On a warm summer Sunday evening in the mid 1980s — I'm guessing ’85 — I was still steamed as I climbed into the front seat of our 1978 Chevrolet pickup to head home from Outlaw City Speedway.

Earlier that day, my stepdad Jimmy Gray and I were sitting on the front steps of a house we used as a storage building that sat beside our race shop in Park City, a little community just south of Fayetteville, Tenn. He said, almost in passing, MORE

At the turn of the century, crate engines weren’t even a consideration in Dirt Late Model racing. Now the low-cost motors are an integral part of short-track racing overall, powering Late Models, sprint cars, modifieds and street stocks. Some of the best drivers you’ve never heard of toil in divisions utilizing the more cost-effective powerplant.

I assume that it’s only natural then that Crate Late Models have elbowed their way into Georgia-Florida Speedweeks — and I think that’s a very MORE