Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Babies arrive after drivers fly home
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: If there’s ever been a World 100 — or, heck, any other Dirt Late Model race — that had two drivers make last-minute flights home because their significant others went into labor, I sure haven’t heard of it. But it happened at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, on Thursday (actually early Friday morning, considering the program’s rain delay): Brandon Overton hopped on a waiting private plane shortly after winning the second 25-lap semifeature to rush back to Georgia with his wife, Heather, in a hospital bed ready to give birth, while Justin Duty booked a commercial flight out of the Cincinnati airport so he could join his girlfriend, Jessica Larsen, for the arrival of their first child at a hospital near their home in Molalla, Ore. Word came today that both racers made it to their ladies’ side in time for the births (Duty cutting it a little closer than Overton) — Overton’s son, Rollins, and Duty’s daughter, Morgan, arrived this afternoon in close time proximity to each other, and the babies, the mothers and the very anxious fathers are all now resting comfortably.
No. 2: Speaking of Dirt Late Model babies, if Garrett Alberson wasn’t missing from the World 100 field this weekend while continuing his recovery from the eye and facial injuries he suffered in Aug. 8’s Sunoco North-South 100, he might have been facing a similar situation as Overton and Duty. I bumped into Alberson’s team owner, Ken Roberts, walking in Eldora’s pits Friday afternoon, and he said Alberson’s wife, Dani, is “a day or two away” from delivering the couple’s second child. Alberson is keeping tabs on Eldora’s action from his home in Colona, Ill., as he, Dani and their young son await the imminent new addition to the family.
No. 3: Roberts was upbeat when providing an update on Alberson’s progress from the broken nose, multiple facial fractures and a laceration above his left eye he sustained when an flying object smashed into his helmet shield on a restart at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky. He said the initial concern over Alberson’s vision has subsided as his sight in his injured eye, while not 100 percent back to normal for distance, is close to what it was before the incident and improves nearly every day. Alberson has a followup appointment with specialists scheduled for Sept. 21 where his healing will be assessed; if all is deemed to look good, Roberts said it’s possible he could return to competition sometime in October. Roberts added that Alberson is staying in shape and working on his reflexes so he’ll be ready when he’s cleared to climb back into the cockpit.
No. 4: As I watched Thursday’s first 25-lap semifeature from inside Eldora’s second corner, I saw cousins Chris Ferguson and Carson Ferguson get a little too close for comfort — at least Carson’s comfort — on lap 16. Chris drifted up a bit toward Carson in the corner, causing Carson to slide high and lose momentum and the fourth spot to his relative. Carson showed some displeasure with Chris during a caution period one circuit later when he pulled alongside Chris on the backstretch and angrily revved his engine. “Cousin love,” Carson’s Paylor Motorsports owner, Donald Bradsher, cracked afterward regarding the moment. Carson, who finished eighth with his car’s performance hampered by the carburetor his crew had to slap on moments before the feature due to a leak that was discovered (the replacement was “right” for the conditions), remarked that “it’s not the first time” he’s had Chris run him up the track and he vowed “he just can’t be mad when I do it back.” Chris, who finished fourth, brushed off his younger cousin’s frustration as he called the scrape, which “didn’t even put a scratch on my car,” as just a part of racing.
No. 5: On Tuesday night, when I was home and saw that the most anticipated match of this year’s U.S. Open tennis tournament so far — a quarterfinal between world No. 2-ranked Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz and popular U.S. player Ben Shelton (not our Dirt Late Model pit reporter of the same name) — was starting at 11:05 p.m. after other matches went long on the featured court, I joked to myself that it was reminiscent of many late nights I’ve experienced at dirt tracks. The match, held in Flushing Meadows outside New York City, ended at 3:33 p.m. ET with Shelton winning a classic five-setter. I stayed up to watch till the end, which I guess prepared me — in either a good or bad way — for Thursday’s World 100 preliminary program running into the wee hours due to showers after hot laps delaying the start of time trials until 10:48 p.m. When the final checkered flag on Thursday finally fell at 2:22 a.m. and I returned to our lodging after 4 a.m., I couldn’t help thinking that two extreme late-night sporting events in three days can cause a bit of a sleep deficit. Here’s hoping there are no more late-nighters this weekend at Eldora.
