Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Second helping of Rice at Brownstown
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: Kentucky’s Rice Brothers Racing will be in full effect for this weekend’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Jackson 100 at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway — Josh Rice, of course, will racing his JRR Motorsports No. 11 in the doubleheader, but he’ll be joined in the field by his older brother James Rice for a family double-dip. James, who at 33 is five years older than Josh, will make his first competitive start in over a year driving the last Rick Jones-owned Rocket Chassis still in the Rice siblings’ shop. “He wants us to race it and try to get it sold for him,” James said of Jones, who stepped aside from fielding Dirt Late Models when Josh landed the JRR Motorsports ride for the 2026 season. James, who has largely focused his racing endeavors in recent years on helping his brother, has two career feature starts in the Jackson 100, finishing 23rd in 2013 and 12th in ’22. His most recent attempt at the event, in ’23, resulted in a DNQ.
No. 2: The Mike Hurley-promoted West Virginia Motor Speedway put up a Facebook post on Thursday night showing how relentless rain has hammered the Mineral Wells facility since it hosted Sept. 6’s Hillbilly Hundred. Record rainfall for the area has swamped the property; photos on social media show huge pools of water in the 3/8-mile oval’s infield, in the pit are outside turn two and behind the backstretch grandstand, plus spots of flooding in the parking and camping sections and debris strewn across the small bridge leading into the parking lot. Fortunately the foul weather has come during a break in the track’s schedule; WVMS officials stated in their post that planning and preparations for Oct. 15-17’s Dirt Track World Championship at the speedway are continuing as they intend to present a crown jewel weekend fans “won’t forget.”
No. 3: The World of Outlaws Late Model Series this week announced a few more dates on the 2027 schedule — and these three certainly caught my eye. The circuit has set a tripleheader weekend in upstate New York for May 14-16, starting Friday at Mohawk International Raceway in Hogansburg, N.Y., and moving on to Can-Am Speedway in LaFargeville, N.Y., on Saturday and Weedsport (N.Y.) Speedway on Sunday. All three races will pay $20,000-to-win. I like seeing a national Dirt Late Model tour invade big-block modified country — my old stomping grounds, and, of course, the area where WoO regular Tim McCreadie cut his racing teeth — but it hasn’t happened in a while. The last time the WoO circuit raced at a New York north of Stateline Speedway in Busti, N.Y., a Dirt Late Model oval just above the western Pennsylvania border, was a 2019 event at Outlaw Speedway in Dundee, N.Y., and the series hasn’t had a multirace swing through upstate New York since 2015 when it visited Fonda Speedway, Ontario’s Brighton Speedway and Weedsport. (Mohawk hosted a single WoO race in 2010 while the series ran at Can-Am in 2009 and ’10 events and Weedsport in 2006-07 and 2015-26.) The Lucas Oil Series, meanwhile, hasn’t contested a race in New York since 2012 (a doubleheader at Stateline and Vernon’s Utica-Rome Speedway).
No. 4: Wylie Moran, the younger brother of reigning Lucas Oil Series champion Devin Moran, is a diehard fan of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and I noticed on social media that he flew out to California to attend the team’s Monday-night game at SoFi Stadium against the New York Giants. He brought along a Hall of Famer as well: his father Donnie, who made the trip for a father-son weekend despite not being a fan of either team. According to Wylie, Donnie remains devoted to his home state’s Cleveland Browns.
No. 5: Come January, Ricky Thornton Jr. won’t be able to run the full Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout at his home state’s Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande because he’s once again planning to compete in the conflicting Chili Bowl Nationals for midget cars in Tulsa, Okla. But the racer’s racer is still going to make a couple cameos — and with the same Adam Family Motorsports team that provided him a ride to win this year’s $25,000 opener of the six-race miniseries. In ’27 Thornton has two races scheduled as a teammate to Daniel Adam: Jan. 9’s $25,000-to-win opener and the even richer $50,000-to-win finale on Jan. 17. Also notable is that Thornton will run a different combination than he’s used to as he pilots one of the team’s Rocket XR2 Chassis carrying a Pro Power engine.
