Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: If it's not one thing, it's another
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: Cody Overton of Evans, Ga., keeps thinking he can’t experience any more weird, unexpected things during his first Georgia-Florida Speedweeks fielding a self-owned Super Late Model team. Then another weird, unexpected thing happens. Before the start of Thursday’s Wieland Winternationals program at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga. — an evening he spent subbing as the driver of Tyler Bruening’s Skyline Motorports No. 16 with Bruening plagued by neck pain from a crash last week at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway — he detailed to the latest addition to his list of frustrating moments. It came during Tuesday’s practice at Golden Isles. “We went out and practiced and it was good,” he said. “Came in, starter broke. So I was going out for my second round and I said, ‘Put a starter on it.’ We put a new starter on it and would not get this thing fired up for nothing. I’m like, ‘Dude?’ So we missed all practice. The next day (Wednesday’s opener), we worked on it all day, and it will not work.” Overton and his crew discovered there was apparently something wrong with the starter that wasn’t visible with the naked eye but was causing “the motor and everything” to turn backwards and not even crank. “Everybody was standing around because nobody could believe it,” said Overton, who has been plagued by engine woes and a host of other problems this year, including a recent incident at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., where an oil filter blew out and spewed oil all over his and neighboring pit stalls. “I said, ‘Now y’all see what I’m going through? I’m buying new s---. It just don’t work. Somebody’s like, ‘I’ve never seen it,’ and I’m, ‘Nope. You never seen it happen before? Well I have.’ ”
No. 2: As I detailed in a previous Take Five, Hall of Famer Donnie Moran is at Golden Isles largely to serve an emergency driver to shuttle his son Devin’s wife, Lakia, to a nearby hospital if she happens to go into labor with the couple’s first child while Devin is racing. (Lakia remains hopeful that the baby will come on schedule on March 12, as she indicated when I saw her in the pit area on Thursday watching Devin’s B-main run.) Donnie was given another driving duty on Thursday, however, by Lucas Oil Series officials: piloting the pace truck. He accepted the offer and spent the night behind the wheel leading the race fields.
No. 3: Speaking of Lucas Oil Series officials, they have some extra responsibilities this week at Golden Isles. With the specials-only track not having officials of its own available to work certain positions, the Lucas Oil staff has stepped up in those areas to keep the show rolling. That includes series announcers James Essex, Dustin Jarrett and Ben Shelton also calling the support-division Crate Late Model and Crown Vic races, but the Lucas Oil team officiating and even lining up the other classes. Doug Wells, who often helps out as a Lucas Oil official, has been on the front lines in the pit area’s lineup chute and has found that getting the Crown Vics in the proper order for their qualifying and races present a much bigger challenge than doing the same with the experience Lucas Oil Series competitors. He said many of the Crown Vics tend to look alike — especially in the dimmer lighter of the staging area — sporting dark colors and simple, homemade lettering, and on one occasion he had a driver walk up and ask him about the lineup order and then saunter over to climb into a car that Wells had just wondered why it had been sitting empty.
No. 4: Carson Ferguson and the Paylor Motorsports team have their own little work area off the beaten path in the Golden Isles pit area. They’re set up on the concrete just outside a long building just behind the pit area beyond the backstretch. They’ve actually rented a spot in the structure for the week, which allows them to pull their trailer inside it and close the garage door during the racing action to keep the hauler clean. The team’s pit box and other necessary tools are outside the building with Ferguson’s car.
No. 5: Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., hauled to Golden Isles — his Speedweeks action since last month’s Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia — for what amounted to a number of test laps. He participated in Tuesday’s practice, but during Wednesday’s time trials he slipped too high between turns three and four, climbing the outside wall. The resulting undercarriage damage to his Ronnie Delk-owned Longhorn Chassis prompted Marlar, a 2024 Lucas Oil winner at the Georgia oval, to scratch from not only Wednesday’s program but load up and immediately head home to regroup.
