Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: ‘Embarrassing’ caution for Flinner
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: The first caution flag of Saturday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Rumble by the River program at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway — on lap five of the first heat — was for a rather unusual reason: a fire-suppression bottle lying in the middle of turn one. A video replay caught the red bottle shooting out of the car driven by Colton Flinner of Allison Park, Pa., who admitted to the indignity of the situation later when I saw him in the pit area. “I’ve never had that happen. I’ve never seen it happen either, actually, so now that I see people talking about it happening to me, it's kind of embarrassing,” he said. The 32-year-old surmised that something kicked up off the track hit the bracket holding the bottle to a framerail next to the transmission or perhaps the broken transmission he experienced early in Friday’s feature caused a crack in one of the brackets “and I just missed it today.” Whatever the case, it was strange seeing the bottle spiraling off his car. “I felt something come out from underneath, but I didn’t know if I ran something over if it came out from underneath of me,” Flinner said. “And then (Lucas Oil Series director Rick) Schwallie said ’48’ (over the one-way radio) and I was like, ‘That must have come from me.’ ” Flinner was banished from the heat, which he understood was a “safety issue” because tour rules require entered machines to carry an onboard fire suppression system. “It sucks because I was running pretty decent (fifth at the time) and would have started probably fourth in the B-main,” said Flinner, who scratched from the consolation. “I guess like people say, ’S--- happens.’ It’s just my luck.”
No. 2: While Flinner left Port Royal following Saturday’s 50-lap feature mourning a short, ill-fated outing, his cute-as-a-button 6-year-old daughter, Letty, didn’t seem too down as she stood alongside her father while I spoke with him in the pit area. She was holding a small die cast car of Jonathan Davenport — the white-and-brown Dirty Dollar Ranch edition — and she had her eyes on Saturday’s $50,000 race winner as he signed autographs and posed with fans a short distance away. “J.D.’s her favorite. She’s all about J.D.,” Flinner said, to which Letty nodded in agreement.
No. 3: Gregg Satterlee’s heat-race wreck during Friday’s Port Royal program prompted his team to return to crew chief Robby Allen’s shop in Hagerstown, Md., to retrieve another car for Saturday’s action. (Satterlee has downsized to a smaller trailer this season so he didn’t have a backup car along.) The machine Satterlee decided to enter was notable: not his usual Rocket Chassis but rather a brand-new car that carried a “RAE-DMC” decal on its left-side roll bar, signifying it’s a special-edition, collaboration build between Allen and longtime Integra Racing Shocks technical representative Brian Daugherty. As a “fun” side project, the two friends made a first attempt at constructing a car last year but weren’t satisfied with the results the handful of times Satterlee ran it, so they went back to the drawing board and tried again with a build of the car Satterlee debuted Saturday following a Tuesday test session at Marion Center (Pa.) Raceway. Daugherty remains reluctant to talk about his effort with Allen until they can fine-tune it and find some success with Satterlee, but hey, it certainly bears mentioning that they had it out at Port Royal, where Satterlee transferred through a heat race but unfortunately had to start-and-park in the feature with engine trouble discovered following the prelim.
No. 4: Jonathan Davenport’s crew guys Cory Fostvedt and Tyler Bragg, along with his merchandise head Jay Hunt, offered some comedic entertainment following Saturday’s Port Royal headliner as I stood with them to the side of the winner’s stage as Davenport conducted his postrace interview with FloRacing’s Chris Moore. All three noted how long Davenport interview seemed to be stretching and cracked jokes about how their driver can tend to be a bit long-winded with his detailed race recaps. Hunt even quipped with a laugh that Davenport might be giving a lap-by-lap recap of the entire 50-lap feature, which he said the 42-year-old superstar could probably considering his impeccable memory of his races. Davenport did, by the way, stop talking after nearly five minutes, at which time his team members joined him.
No. 5: There’s no doubt about this: the weather both days of Port Royal’s Rumble by the River was absolutely perfect. Sunny skies with not a chance of rain in the forecast. Afternoon high about 80. Refreshing cool-off at sunset providing a preview of autumn. I had several people who travel the Lucas Oil Series mention the wonderful conditions to me Saturday, especially coming just two weeks after the circuit’s regulars endured stifling temperatures of around 105 degrees during the Topless 100 at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark. Among the participants who expressed the most relief to me over the comfortable air in the central Pennsylvania mountains was Lucas Oil Series technical director Kenute Mausehund, who noted that he wears a full firesuit while taking care of his race-night duties so the Batesville sauna hit him even harder. “I’m loving this weather,” he said while at the series trailer shortly before the start of the feature.
