Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Charlotte's little victory lane visitor
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: There were three World of Outlaws Late Model Series winners in the Dave Smith Motors World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C., but one person made two victory lane appearances nonetheless: Roxzen Hoffman, the 5-year-old son of WoO regular Nick Hoffman. In a previous Take Five I detailed Roxzen’s roof-dance moment with his dad after Hoffman’s Friday-night feature win; on Saturday he was back in front of the photographers again, joining his father’s buddy, Jonathan Davenport, for a rooftop celebration after the Blairsville, Ga., superstar’s triumph in the event’s 50-lap finale. “He only likes winners,” quipped Hoffman, who rallied from the rear of the field to finish ninth on Saturday after spinning in a mid-race scrape with Chris Madden amid lapped traffic. Roxzen is also a big J.D. fan, though, as evidence by his ride back to the pit area in Davenport’s car and how he was climbing in and out of Davenport’s seat while Davenport did postrace interviews at his trailer.
No. 2: Davenport’s victory was his ninth in World Finals action, making him the event’s all-time winningest driver. While never a WoO regular, he’s been a regular entrant, starting at least one feature every since its launch in 2007 except in ’09 (the only year he didn’t enter the weekend) and ’13 (didn’t qualify for both races). Notably, he won his first three World Finals features in 2010, ’11 and ’15, then went five years without a victory before sweeping the pair of ’21 races. Including that double-up and subsequent triumphs in ’22, ’25 (two) and Saturday, he’s captured six of the event’s last 17 features and three of the last six.
No. 3: The Dirt Track at Charlotte has long been a favorite for Davenport, and after his Saturday victory he recalled his first visit to the speedway — not as a racer, but when he tagged along with fellow Georgia racer Shane Tankersley. He’s not entirely sure of the year or the event, but it was definitely a show in the early- to mid-2000s — not the Colossal 100 and before the World Finals was created — and he witnessed one thing that he’s forgotten. “I remember watching Freddy Smith,” Davenport said of the late Hall of Famer who was still competing at the time. “His car was sitting on the ground, he took a measurement from the wheel to the wheel-well and jacked it up and changed (the setup) from spring-behind to spring-in-front. I just always remember that.”
No. 4: The popular three-division four-wide parade lap was pushed to Saturday’s program by the rain-delayed start of Friday’s action. There’s always some great photos and video of the demonstration that shows up on social media, and this year a post from WoO Sprint Car champion David Gravel caught my eye. He shot a video from inside his cockpit that showed Bobby Pierce wheeling alongside of him — the three series champions led the parade lap — and wrote, “Hey Bobby Pierce wanna race??” Pierce’s response on X? “Let’s swap rides first,” he wrote with a laughing emoji.
No. 5: After the World Finals, I cashed in some airline miles and jumped on a flight in Charlotte early Sunday to make a banzai run down to Miami to catch my Detroit Lions play the Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium. My wife and I have friends in Miami and their teenage son, who just started playing football, has been wanting to go to a Dolphins game, so I figured the Lions being in their backyard would be a perfect time for me to join them. My trip allowed me to spend some time tailgating in the parking lot before the game with Lucas Oil Series regular Max Blair, a huge Dolphins fan who, despite living in western Pennsylvania, has season tickets and attends several games a year with family members. Blair usually tailgates at Dolphins games with fellow Dirt Late Model driver (and Dolphins fan) Jason Riggs of College Grove, Tenn. — they fly a flag above their popup tent in the parking lot that has the Dolphins logo and pics of their race cars, adding some Dirt Late Model flavor to South Florida — but Riggs couldn’t make it down because he had to drive his hauler back to the shop after competing in the World Finals. Riggs graciously allowed me and my friends to use his Dolphins season tickets, though, so I thank him profusely.
