Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Davenports enjoying time at 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: The driver most noticeably absent from the entirety of Georgia-Florida Speedweeks so far is, of course, Jonathan Davenport, the sixth-winningest racer in Speedweeks history who is running a pick-and-choose schedule this season. What’s the 43-year-old star been up to at his ranch in Pelzer, S.C., while all the racing has been going full-bore? His wife, Rachel, shed some light by authoring a poignant Facebook post on Saturday. “I’m thankful I could snap this picture in the midst of Speedweeks and it wasn’t a 24-hour (visit) home trip,” Rachel wrote, referring to a photo of Davenport walking down the street with his right arm draped around the shoulders of his 13-year-old son, Blane, during a recent family night out at their favorite Mexican restaurant in Belton, S.C. “I’m thankful Jonathan had to send me pictures and videos of Blane fishing (with his school team) this weekend because he was there with him and I wasn’t having to live in the moment for him and keep him updated.” And Rachel added that she’s just “loving driving him crazy” during a period when her husband is typically away from home for Speedweeks action. “I’ve cooked more in the month of January and February than I ever have, he’s helped me out at work, we’ve worked together on the ranch, we’ve hung out as a family together … and yeah, life’s good.”
No. 2: Weather permitting, Davenport does plan to be back racing for the first time since Jan. 10-18’s Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout this week when he unloads his Lance Landers-owned Longhorn Chassis on Thursday at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway for the final three nights of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Wieland Winternationals. He also plans to compete in Lucas Oil’s March 4-7 event at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga.
No. 3: Dalton Cook of Smiths Station, Ala., has been campaigning two older Rocket XR1 Chassis (one a 2017, the other a ’19) in recent years, but he’s purchased a new Longhorn Chassis and is currently assembling it with plans to debut the machine in March 20-21’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series weekend at Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss. The 33-year-old related that he sold his Rockets and will focus on the Longhorn going forward; the change comes as he tries to go a new direction with his shock-building and technical consulting business. Cook’s schedule in 2026 will focus on chasing his second straight Southern Thunder Super Dirt Series championship, which would extend his streak of regional titles to three years in a row (he won the Southern All Star Series crown in 2024).
No. 4: Happy belated birthday to Bob Pierce, the Hall of Fame driver and chassis builder and father of Bobby Pierce who turned 74 a couple days ago. I’ll call Bob a force of nature as he just keeps on energetically rolling down the road as his son’s crew chief. Check out the list of head wrenches for the drivers who are national touring series regulars and you’ll notice that he’s the oldest of the group by over a decade, but certainly no one outworks him or, I’d say, enjoys the grind more.
No. 5: Here’s hoping for good health to bless Jim Long Jr., the former Fayetteville (N.C.) Motor Speedway promoter and Steel Block Bandits Late Model Challenge Series. Long, 58, detailed on Facebook that overnight Sunday he experienced severe chest pains while at home and had his wife, Kathy, take him to the hospital. He was transferred by ambulance to another hospital where he underwent tests that ultimately found no heart problems but discovered that the cancer he’s been battling in recent years has progressed in his lungs, he wrote, “to the point that the cancer lesions have wrapped around a main artery and multiple areas around my heart that are restricting blood flow.” Long was released on Monday night and said he has follow-up appointments set with medical and radiation oncology to the problems as well as a lesion found on his liver and a fractured pelvis. Long — with whom I had an enjoyable conversation last month during the Wild West Shootout, which he flew out to attend with Daniel Adam’s father Joe — expressed thanks to everyone who sent prayers and well-wishes to him during his medical episode and reported that he was back working his job Tuesday as a realtor.
