Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Morans ready to ferry precious cargo
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: Donnie Moran went home to Dresden, Ohio, after spending a week last month at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., watching his son Devin compete in the Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals. But the Hall of Famer flew south shortly thereafter and is still hanging around the Double Down Motorsports pit area this week at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga. — at Devin’s express request. While Donnie can of course offer his always helpful technical insight to his son, he’s on hand largely to serve as a stand-by emergency driver in case Devin’s wife, Lakia, who is due to deliver the couple’s first child on March 12, goes into labor while Devin is in the middle of racing. Lakia is staying on schedule so far while at Georgia-Florida Speedweeks with Devin — and working Devin’s T-shirt trailer — but Donnie said a doctor she visited last week in Ocala, Fla., confirmed that the baby could come “at any time now.”
No. 2: When I chatted with Donnie Moran in the infield at Golden Isles before the start of Wednesday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature, he noted that he’s taking his driving duties very seriously. In fact, he said he had already driven from the track to the hospital in Brunswick, Ga., to make sure he’s familiar with the route and where the emergency room is in case he has to whisk Lakia there over the remaining days of the Wieland Winternationals, which concludes Lucas Oil’s season-opening Speedweeks stretch on Saturday.
No. 3: Devin and Lakia Moran are certainly hoping that the baby holds off its arrival until Lakia’s due date when they’ll be back with Lakia’s regular doctor in Ohio. I mentioned to Devin that a trip from Georgia to the Buckeye State for the newborn’s first ride would be a little, let’s say, nerve-racking for him. Every parent has anxiety when they put their new baby in the car seat for the first time and drive home; when my wife and I took our son home from the hospital nearly 19 years ago, I can recall driving so carefully — and slow — that I’m sure people behind me were cursing me out. I couldn’t imagine having to make a drive that was hundreds of miles, but hey, Devin is a professional driver so he might be able to handle the stress better than me.
No. 4: After I finished interviewing Wednesday’s Golden Isles feature winner Jonathan Davenport during the postrace technical inspection at the Lucas Oil Series operations trailer in the pit area, he was the last of the top three finishers still there with their car. He then asked me, “Wanna drive it back?” He seemed serious about letting me hop in and pilot it across the pits to his trailer, but I laughed and declined. I wasn’t going to risk running into something or even just stalling it out in the middle of the pits.
No. 5: After watching Wednesday’s heat races from the upper deck of Golden Isles’s two-tier steel grandstand, I’ll reiterate what I’ve said before: it’s one of the best views in Dirt Late Model racing. I love the track’s steep, high set of bleachers that were formerly a section of stands at Daytona International Speedway. The sightlines are perfect and the pitch of the stands makes it seem like you’re on top of the action. And by the way, while Wednesday’s crowd was light — Golden Isles traditionally draws its large Speedweeks turnouts for the Friday and Saturday shows — it was the first time I sat in that grandstand with other people around. My only previous visit to the track was for May 2020’s Lucas Oil Series return-from-Covid tripleheader that was run without spectators allowed so I was completely alone when I watched from the stands then.
