Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Shirley sorts out team's engine woes
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: Brian Shirley of Chatham, Ill., has experienced especially difficult stretches of luck during Georgia-Florida Speedweeks multiple times in his carer, but the start he’s had this year is arguably among the worst. After his 2026 competitive debut last weekend at Screven Motor Speedway in Sylvania, Ga., was shortened by engine trouble (broken valve springs) during Friday’s Winter Freeze XVI feature, he spent the next two days at his buddy Mark Whitener’s shop in Middleburg, Fla., dropping a brand-new powerplant in his car. Then he rolled onto the track for hot laps Monday at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., and didn’t even complete a circuit before his motor expired in much more serious fashion. What’s Shirley’s next move? He has one more engine along with him bolted in his other car, but he doesn’t want to risk running it all week at Volusia with his Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series campaign beginning next week. Shirley left Volusia’s pit Monday night and traveled back to Whitener’s shop to plot his next move by phone with team owner Bob Cullen. There’s two more motors at Shirley’s garage and another at engine builder Andy Durham’s shop; he said the best case scenario to have another engine in his possession is by Thursday if he drives to Durham's shop in North Carolina to retrieve it so running this weekend's World of Outlaws Late Model Series nights at Volusia is uncertain.
No. 2: During Monday’s program at Volusia I crossed paths with a familiar face from the north: Chub Frank, the veteran racer from Bear Lake, Pa., who decided to make the trip to the DIRTcar Nationals after getting ahead on shop work for his racing clients. The 64-year-old was a Volusia stalwart for two decades — he’s won four times at the track — but hasn’t raced there since 2019. I asked Frank if he’d be overseeing the Volusia efforts of his cousin Boom Briggs and Briggs’s driver Tim McCreadie and he brushed off the suggestion. “I’m just watching,” Frank smiled.
No. 3: Frank isn’t the only former WoO regular from Pennsylvania who’s spending the week at Volusia. Also in the pit area is Rick Eckert of York, Pa., a longtime Volusia participant (he’s won seven times) who is on hand providing technical assistance to his pal Ross Robinson of Georgetown, Del. Eckert, who last competed in the DIRTcar Nationals in 2022, told DirtonDirt’s Michael Rigsby and Ben Shelton that he agreed to come down to help Robinson, but quipped that he didn’t realize it meant “being here for like 28 days” with the Lucas Oil Series now racing for three weekends following the Daytona 500.
No. 4: Monday’s DIRTcar Nationals program drew a strong 56-car field, which represented the largest turnout for the event’s opening night since 2012 when 73 entries were signed in. Who won that year’s DIRTcar-sanctioned feature? It was Steve Francis, who of course is at Volusia this week in his capacity as the WoO series director.
No. 5: The 1-2 finish by Brandon and Cody Overton in Monday’s 25-lap feature at Volusia was the third time they’ve occupied the top-two spots in a Super Late Model feature during Georgia-Florida Speedweeks; they twice previously accomplished the feat — with Brandon on top each time — last year in a 20-lap DIRTcar semifeature at Volusia and on Jan. 30 in Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series action at Needmore Speedway in Norman Park, Ga. They’re not the first set of brothers, though, to log a 1-2 Super Late Model finish during Speedweeks. Florida’s Nosbisch brothers did it on Jan. 31, 1992, at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla., where Ken Nosbisch beat Keith Nosbisch in a 25-lap feature on the old All-Star Circuit of Champions series.
Editor's note: Updates Shirley's tentative plan for getting another engine
