Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Mills leaves PDC on upward trajectory
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: Before completely putting Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway’s Prairie Dirt Classic in the rearview mirror, I wanted to give one more appreciation post on Trey Mills. If the 18-year-old World of Outlaws Late Model Series rookie from St. Augustine, Fla., didn’t make everyone a believer in his potential with some of his runs over the past year — like holding off Brandon Sheppard to win last year’s Herald & Review 100, winning 2025’s Cotton Pickin’ finale, flipping out of the ballpark while battling for the lead in March’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Speedweeks finale at Golden Isles Speedway, starting on the pole and leading the first 24 laps of June’s Dream — then his PDC performance should have done it. Calmly winning a Friday semifeature and rolling off the pole in the 100-lapper to pace the first 63 laps (and earn $31,500 in lap money!) before a deflating tire knocked him from contention on lap 81, the kid was incredibly impressive. What has really struck me about Mills is that, in his first year chasing a national touring series, he’s had quite a few solid WoO runs (two top-fives, 15 top-10s) and is gaining experience without obtaining any sort of reputation that I can ascertain of running people over. Yes, he can get aggressive and make mistakes, but you don’t hear any pit-area whispers of him being a perpetual caution-causing menace. Mills is going about his Dirt Late Model education in a notable manner, and runs like this past weekend are going to come more regularly in the future.
No. 2: Mills is still growing into himself as an interview subject; I mean, he just graduated high school, so he’s not yet a finished product in terms of speaking colorfully and descriptively about his exploits. He’ll certainly develop into a more polished and free-flowing talker as he matures. The way he responded to my question regarding how he’s cognizant of getting too aggressive showed he’s quite self-aware. “My dad (Stanton) is the biggest guy I don’t want to face” after making an ill-advised move on the track, Mills said. “He’s the owner and he’s the head guy of our team. He makes everything happen and he can shut this deal down with a snap of fingers, so we got to keep him happy. But obviously, you know, I don’t want to go out there and run anybody over. I don’t want to have a reputation of being a dirty driver or whatever. I want to be known as a guy you can actually race hard and race clean, so that’s pretty much the goal of whatever I go out there.”
No. 3: After Saturday’s PDC finale I spoke with Mills crew member Colbey Richman, a 27-year-old who has worked for several Dirt Late Model teams over the past decade. He’s certainly been impressed by Mills thanks to his close proximity to the youngster. “He’s ate up with it, like, obsessed,” Richman said of the youngster's dedication to racing. “Stanton both are, so, like, I think he holds himself to a high enough standard to where all he demands is perfection. I think that's going to drive him very, very far. I’ve been around this stuff a long time now, and I really think he’s going to be the next big deal. Like the kid’s up next. He’s born into it, loves it. When you get him behind closed doors, he’s a different person — like, the dude’s an animal. He’s wild. But when it matters the most (at the track) … he’s got a good head on his shoulders. I feel like he has a good enough guidance system to kind of keep him on the street and narrow and believes in him 100 percent. The kid’s gonna go far. It's just a matter of when.”
No. 4: Plenty of drivers left Fairbury disappointed with their PDC results, but Ryan Unzicker of El Paso, Ill., was among those feeling the most frustration. The 45-year-old veteran entered the weekend with especially high hopes thanks to his especially strong performance this season: three victories among 17 top-five finishes in a modest 24 starts plus the points lead on the MARS Championship Series. What’s more, he unloaded in Fairbury’s pit area for last Wednesday’s FloRacing Night in America show to kick off the week boasting 14 consecutive top-five finishes, including two wins and nine runner-up placings. Unzicker started strong Wednesday with a notable 19th-to-eighth advance in the 50-lapper and timed a respectable 14th-fastest in his PDC qualifying group Friday, but then his weekend went sour. Scheduled to start seventh in the second 25-lap semifeature, he was sent to the rear of the field as a penalty for illegally attempting to change a tire while in the staging area — his crew jacked up his car with the intent to swap a 4-compound right-rear tire to a softer 3 — and went on to finish sixth, missing a transfer by two spots. Unzicker started from the outside pole in Saturday’s third B-main but, while battling for the second and final transfer position, he slipped over the cushion between turns one and two on a lap-five restart and caught the wall, ending his weekend. It was just the second time since 2017, when he scored a career-best second-place finish in the 100-lapper, that Unzicker wasn’t in the field for the PDC finale.
No. 5: Here’s a shoutout to WoO Late Model Series safety director Matty Watkins, who acted like a bolt of lightning to prevent a major fluid spill when he was the first to arrive at Ricky Thornton Jr.’s crashed car on the backstretch following a lap-96 restart during the PDC. Thornton’s right-rear wheel and axle was ripped off and his car’s rear end was broken when he hopped the cushion and clipped a catchfence pole. Watkins pulled up to the scene with his Gator vehicle and quickly recognized that fluid was streaming out of the machine’s rear. The 40-year-old hustled back to his Gator to grab a bucket of Speedi-Dry and immediately started shoveling it onto the moisture that was beginning to ooze from underneath the car. “I didn’t want it to go all across the track,” said Watkins, who was still breathing heavy from his late-race workout when victory lane ceremonies began shortly thereafter.
