Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: Finally a winner at Cherokee's Blue-Gray
Considering Zack Mitchell is 29 years old, it seems he would have a detailed memory of the first time he ran the Blue-Gray 100 at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C. It couldn’t have been that long ago, right?
But ask the driver from Enoree, S.C., about that moment in his career and he’ll provide a quizzical response. Because it was a long time ago — way back in 2009, when Mitchell was a fresh-faced, 13-year-old middle-schooler just starting to find his way in the Super Late Model ranks.
“To be honest with you, I really don’t remember much about it,” Mitchell said. “Back then, you know, all I cared about was just strapping in the car and just holding it to the floor.”
The history books show Mitchell won the B-main and finished 22nd in the feature that mid-November day nearly 16 years ago. His outing ended early because of a wreck, and, coming just a few starts after being admittedly “terrified” in his Super Late Model debut, he was still adjusting to the speed of the headline division.
Mitchell’s first teenaged Blue-Gray 100 appearance did, however, begin his long association with Cherokee’s marquee event that has been contested annually since 1991. Last Saturday night, at long last, he won it, putting his name on a list of race winners that is filled with current and future Hall of Famers and earning a race-record $35,000 top prize in the race’s first edition under Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series sanction.
“Man, it feels great to finally get that off my back, I guess, just to finally get it done,” Mitchell said a few days after his breakthrough victory. “It seems like every time I go over there (for the Blue-Gray 100), especially in recent years, I either have a flat tire at the end or just not put myself in the position I needed to be in. It was just always something.”
Saturday marked Mitchell’s 14th career start in the Blue-Gray 100. He’s only missed the race twice since his first attempt (in 2012 and ’21) and prior to Saturday was in contention to win multiple times, leading laps in 2019 and ’22 and finishing as high as third, in ’23. In his five starts between 2019 and ’24, he never started worse than fourth, but he managed just a single top-10 finish (eighth in ’24) aside from his podium result.
This year Mitchell experienced a dose of frustration before even signing in for the Blue-Gray 100, which was expanded to a two-day show that served as the Hunt the Front tour’s season finale. On the eve of Friday’s $8,022-to-win opener, he learned from Hunt the Front officials that he was disqualified from his Sept. 27 series victory at Southern Raceway in Milton, Fla., because of a failed tire test, stripping 100 points from his season total on the circuit. Since he was set to enter the weekend just two points behind leader Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., his shot at the $50,000 championship was effectively wiped out.
Both Mitchell and his car owner Brett Coltman issued statements on Friday denying any wrongdoing. They expressed disbelief that a tire they used would fail to conform to the established benchmark in laboratory testing.
“My entire career I have taken pride in my integrity and always doing the right thing,” Mitchell wrote in a Facebook post that he said would serve as his comment on the issue. “We have worked countless hours and spent valuable time away from our families this year to put ourselves into the position we’re in (as a title contender). I know what I stand for and what my team stands for and cheating has no place in that.
“I understand people have their own opinions and truly I did too before this happened, but when something like this happens and you know without a shadow of doubt that our tire was not altered in any way possible, your opinion will change. This is not the first time this has happened, and until the flaws in the process are corrected, it will happen again.”
Mitchell admitted that the penalty “definitely took a lot out of me” heading into Cherokee’s weekend. He was extremely disappointed to lose his golden opportunity to add a Hunt the Front crown to his previous titles with the Ultimate Southeast Series (four) and Carolina Clash (one), but he didn’t let the turn of events shake his focus from chasing victory in the Blue-Gray 100.
“The whole time we were going to win the race, or win both races, regardless of points,” Mitchell said. “I feel like the points deals is just one of those things where you just gotta look at it at the end of it, right? I knew we had to get through those two races and we had to run relatively well because it was so close, but we were still pumped up about it. We were gonna give it all we had just like we always do.
“It definitely stung a little bit, but you just gotta pick yourself back up. You got a job to do.”
And he did it well, raising his spirits with the richest triumph of his career.
“That was definitely a boost to our feelings or whatever,” Mitchell said of his victory, which exceed his previous career-high payday of $20,000 earned in a Hunt the Front score last year at Cherokee. “That definitely helped us out. Any time you leave somewhere with a win is always a plus, so you just got to look on the brighter side of it.”
The victory didn’t come easy. Mitchell started 19th, climbed into the top five, then pitted to change tires and had to charge forward again. He finally grabbed the lead from two-time race winner Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., with just five laps remaining.
Mitchell’s pit stop was a planned one, though the timing of it (lap 66) wasn’t quite when he would have preferred. Cherokee’s 3/8-mile oval is famously abrasive and the consensus in the pit area was that a tire change would be needed even with the race being run under the lights rather than in the daytime as is usually the case, but Mitchell feared he waited too long to make his swap. When he returned to the track on lap 66, Overton, who pitted on lap 55, was already back up to second and ready to assume command.
“We knew we were going to pit at some point, we just didn’t exactly know when,” Mitchell said. “We really didn’t want to come in with everybody else, but I honestly thought right there when Brandon and all those guys come in, I was like, ‘We just missed our opportunity.’
“But, you know, I got up to like fourth, and of course, the closer you get to the front, the harder it is to come in. But I knew I knew I had been running pretty hard so I knew I wasn't going to make all 100 laps, so that wasn't an option.”
Mitchell was well aware that attempting to go the distance in the Blue-Gray 100 without a tire change takes a special ability. It can be done, but Saturday’s excellent track conditions — he said the the track “was probably the best I’ve ever seen it” — made it very unlikely that a driver would be able to stay in front at the pace necessary to go all 100 laps.
“I’ve been over there so much, and, you know, I’ve seen Chris Madden (win without changing tires), which Chris is really, really good at that,” Mitchell said. “One year I run second behind him like the whole race, and we knew we were gonna pit in that race the whole time too, and I felt like I was running pretty hard but he was steady pulling away from me. I’m like, ‘There ain’t no way he’s going to make it,’ but he does all the time.
“But nevertheless, the thing about not pitting is, you have to run so slow, especially at the end of the race. That’s fine when the racetrack’s kind of one-lane around the bottom, but, you know, the case Saturday was, you could get up top and pass cars, so it just felt like that even if you could have made 100 laps, I don’t think you could have kept pace at the end of the race.”
Mitchell wondered if he would be able to bid for the victory after pitting with just 34 laps left.
“I clicked a couple (positions) off there on that restart and I got up to like 12th, or 10th maybe, and I remember them coming over the Raceceiver and saying we had like 15 to go, and I’m like, ‘There's no way. There’s no way I’m doing this,’ ” Mitchell said. “Overton was already in the lead, and I was like, a lot of these guys up front, they pitted too.
“Then we fired it off, and I think we had a caution because some guys got jumbled up. and then we fired back off again and I passed a couple cars, and next thing you know I’m running fourth or fifth. Then I finally get to second, and I’m like, I might win this thing. I got really comfortable with running the top, and even the bottom too, I was really good around the bottom.
“It all played out right,” he added. “I’m not gonna say a lot of luck goes into winning winning that race, but you do have to kind of be a little lucky, and we put ourselves in the right position and had some things fall our way and had a couple of cautions fall our way.”
The final circuits after Mitchell gained command were still stressful for Mitchell. That big-money check, and his longtime desire to win the Blue-Gray 100, put the pressure on him.
“My heart, it was it was racing those last handful of laps,” said Mitchell, who earlier this year won Cherokee’s springtime special, the March Madness event, for the first time in his 12th career attempt. “During that caution (on lap 97), I had to kind of have a talk with myself. It’s like, ‘Hey, you need to calm down a little bit. Just don’t do anything stupid on this restart.’
“That was probably the most … I wouldn’t say the most nervous I’ve ever been, but I don’t think I’ve ever had my heart racing as much as I did at the end there.”
The coveted victory at his home track — Cherokee is about 45 minutes from Mitchell’s home — left him thinking about the dramatic change in his racing life over the past year that was made possible by Coltman, the race-loving businessman from Maysville, Ga., whose Coltman Farms Racing program has become a familiar entity in the Dirt Late Model division. Mitchell enjoyed plenty of success driving family-owned equipment throughout his career, but joining Coltman’s well-heeled operation in August 2024 provided him the opportunity to take his racing to a new level.
“We had talked a little bit for a couple months and just never really put anything in concrete,” Mitchell said when asked about how he landed with Coltman, who fields a World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series effort for Tanner English of Benton, Ky., and sponsors many drivers and racing series. “And then I seen him at Duck River. I think it was right at the beginning of August, and we just started talking and he was pretty much like, ‘Hey, would you like to come drive for me?’ I was like, ‘Of course, absolutely.’ ”
When Mitchell joined Coltman’s team, he was more than a year into working for his father-in-law Ricky Bogan, a local racer himself. Mitchell, who had previously made his living as a welder and machinist at Master Machine Works in Spartanburg, S.C., was able to become a full-time Dirt Late Model driver thanks to Coltman.
“I was getting to the point where I wanted to race a little bit more, and I didn’t feel like it was fair to (Master Machine Works), me leaving all the time to go racing, and my father in law, you know, he let me have a job and it was definitely a lot more lenient,” Mitchell said. “He does a lot maintenance and stuff like that through Michelin Tire, so I may be welding one day, or I may be doing electrical work the next, but I had the opportunity with him to make my own hours.
“I remember walking in his office when I finally nailed everything together with Brett and telling him. I was like, ‘Ricky, I've been working for you for a little while now, but I got this opportunity to do this (racing) full time,’ and I told him I was leaving. But I said, ‘I’ll stay if you need me for two weeks or three weeks, whatever.’ But he races as well locally at Gaffney and Harris, so he knew the deal, and he was like, ‘Go ahead and do what you gotta do.’ ”Mitchell found himself suddenly in a dream position, spending his morning-to-night focused on racing and with plenty of resources to compete at the highest levels.
“It was kind of a culture shock, honestly, because, I mean, that’s what you're concentrating on, you know?” Mitchell said. “You work on the racing stuff just like you would a regular 9-to-5. I was so used to working all day long and coming home and working until 10 or 11 at night on the race cars, but now you got that time to do everything and do it right. I feel like that makes a huge difference, just putting your concentration during the day fully on racing. You’re able to prepare a lot better.
“It’s one of those deals, if you want to go test, you go test. It’s not like, I need to work this out with job, or I need to take this day off. I’ll never forget those first couple of months, I caught myself, we’d be taking off on Thursday or Friday and going racing, and I was thinking, I’m gonna have to ask for Thursday and Friday off. Then I’d realize, This is what I do. It’s kind of like a dream I guess you could say. It’s all I ever wanted to do is race full time.”
Mitchell now has full-time crew members in Aubrey Pruitt and Duane Frady helping him maintain three Longhorn Chassis machines. There’s plenty of spare parts in the shop and an owner who’s completely behind them.
“He’s full-blown into racing,” Mitchell said of Coltman. “He’s invested a lot, and he’s done a lot for me. And the sport needs a lot of people like Brett that are passionate about this and are willing to do this and spend the money that it takes.”
Mitchell has produced some solid results as a full-timer, winning twice last year with Coltman and logging eight victories so far this season, including a truly memorable trip the Midwest in mid-July to run the final week of the DIRTcar Summer Nationals. He won three of his six starts, tallying a $5,000 victory at Shadyhill in Medaryville, Ind., and $10,000 triumphs at Crystal (Mich.) Motor Speedway and Oakshade Raceway in Wauseon, Ohio.
“It was a crazy experience,” Mitchell said of his stint on the Hell Tour. “That’s probably the first time in my whole career I’ve been to six tracks in a row I’ve never been to. To go and be competitive with those guys in their territory, it’s huge.”
Mitchell still has plenty of racing on his agenda this season, starting with this weekend’s Southern Thunder-sanctioned doubleheader at Talladega Short Track in Eastaboga, Ala. (He’s opting to stay closer to home rather than run the Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, where he entered both the Dream and World 100 this year.) He also has upcoming trips planned to Mississippi’s Whynot Motorsports Park, East Alabama Motor Speedway (National 100), The Dirt Track at Charlotte (World Finals), Senoia (Ga.) Raceway (FloRacing Night in America Peach State Classic) and the Gateway Dirt Nationals in St. Louis, Mo.
As for the 2026 campaign, Mitchell said he’s still discussing plans with Coltman, but a first-ever national touring series attempt isn’t out of the question. All sorts of exciting possibilities are on the table for the driver who will be entering his second full season as a full-timer.
“I couldn't afford to run 60 or 70 races a year (with his family-owned team) because I only had those two motors and two cars,” Mitchell said. “It kind of sounds like a lot, but when you start racing a lot, you realize that motors get lapped out a lot quicker than you think and that stuff costs money, too. It’s one of those things where I don’t have to worry about that anymore and it’s 100 percent easier that way.
“That’s all I ever wanted is to be a full-time race car driver, and Brett gave me that chance and I’ll forever be grateful for that.”
Ten things worth mentioning
1. Winning the Blue-Gray 100 brought Mitchell some extra joy on a family level: his nearly 10-month-old son, Bennett, joined him in victory lane. “He was at Eldora with us both times this year, he’s been to Gaffney probably two or three times, but that was the first time I got a win with him there,” Mitchell said. “That was real special for me and I know it was for my wife (Brenna).”
2. Mitchell is closing on the big 3-0, the milestone birthday he’ll hit on Feb. 10. Will leaving his 20s mean his longtime nickname is no longer applicable? “They started calling me ‘Kid Quick’ when I was about 13 and it always stuck with me,” he said, before adding with a laugh, “I’m getting old. I’ll guess we’ll see if it stays.”
3. Jimmy Owens’s Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series championship, which he clinched by signing in for Saturday’s Blue-Gray 100 finale, was the second regional touring title of his Hall of Fame career. The 53-year-old star who owns four Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series national crowns (2011-13, ’20) previously hit pay dirt in regional action when he captured the 2023 Schaeffer’s Southern Nationals championship.
4. Kyle Bronson of Brandon, Fla., has spent most of the past couple years campaigning Longhorn Chassis, but he announced that he’s coming “home” with his manufacturer choice: he’ll debut a new Rocket XR2 Chassis in this weekend’s DTWC at Eldora. The 35-year-old with a modest two victories this season — both in unsanctioned events at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City — wrote in a Facebook post that his team “needed an all fresh start” that includes the chassis, shock brand (Fox) and the car’s wrap (black, blue and white scheme).
5. Josh Rice of Crittenden, Ky., wasn’t planning to race last weekend while prepping his Rick Jones-owned equipment for the DTWC, but he received a last-minute offer he couldn’t refuse: a chance to run Saturday’s regular show at Atomic Speedway in Alma, Ohio, for James Rattliff’s JRR team. Driving a car piloted occasionally by Justin Rattliff, the team owner’s son, Rice went out and won Atomic’s feature. There’s been speculation floating around that Rice could be joining the Rattliff operation for the 2026 season, but the 27-year-old standout declined to comment on the talk. He’ll be behind the wheel of his usual Rick Jones No. 11 at Eldora, and he also will compete in the Steel Block Late Model event driving for Maryland’s Bruce Kane, whose regular driver, Wil Herrington, is unable to attend because he’s under the weather.
6. Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, will of course be chasing his first-ever Lucas Oil Series title this weekend as he enters Eldora’s DTWC weekend leading the points standings. He said in a Facebook video hie posted on Monday that he’s hoping that he’s hoping for a championship celebration on Eldora’s stage that will give him an opportunity to offer up some personal news about his first child, which his wife, Lakia, is due to deliver in March. Devin and Lakia had a gender reveal for their family Monday but haven’t yet made it public if there will be a boy or girl Moran arriving in the spring.
7. The Octoberfest weekend was a late-season staple at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway for more than two decades, running annually from 1988-2011 with Dirt Late Models always on the card (along with big-block modified, sprint cars and, later on, small-block modifieds). This weekend the event makes its return as the October 150, albeit in a different form. Rather than a two-day afternoon deal with qualifying heats on Saturday and features on Sunday, it will be run in the evening on Friday and Saturday and have two features contested each night: a 35-lap, $6,000-to-win Fall Clash affair for Super Late Models runs Friday alongside a 35-lapper for small-block mods, while Saturday’s show includes a 50-lapper for Short Track Super Series big-block modifieds and and a 30-lapper for sportsman.
8. Hopefully you’ve been checking out the four-part Dirt Late Model edition of the DIRT short films by FloRacing. The series has offered behind-the-scenes looks at Jonathan Davenport, Devin Moran, Brandon Overton and, in this week’s final show, Ricky Thornton Jr. They’re all entertaining pieces so find them at FloRacing.
9. Veteran photographer Mike Ruefer let us know that his 2025 racing season ended last weekend, completing his busiest yet since he retired from his full-time job and began increasing his track chasing. The Davenport, Iowa, resident has become well known at the track for presenting victory cigars to feature winners at every race he attends and he informed that he handed out 82 cigars this year, pushing his total to just over 800 since he began giving them out in 2007.
10. Remember Tim Fuller, the big-block modified driver from Watertown, N.Y., who toured with the WoO Late Model Series from 2007-14? He’s still racing modifieds regularly in the Northeast, and last weekend I caught an interview he did after dropping out of Friday’s Super DIRT Week 358-Modified 150 at Oswego (N.Y.) Speedway in which he offered one of the quotes of the year. Asked why he had pulled out of the race, the 57-year-old nonchalantly said, “I broke an interest rod,” and then went on to explain how he saw no need to continue since he wasn’t going forward. I’d say he came up with a unique “reason out” for the boxscore.
