Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Tungate on mend after health scare
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: In the wake of Justin Rattliff dedicating his $10,000 victory in Saturday’s Northern Allstar Dirt Racing Series-sanctioned Spring 50 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., to JRR Motorsports team manager Tim Tungate, the former Dirt Late Model standout’s wife, Rhonda, provided an update on the medical emergency that kept Tungate from the track. Rhonda Tungate posted on Facebook that Tim suffered a stroke on Friday evening and was flown to a hospital in Louisville, Ky., for treatment. She wrote that “by the grace of God alone he is doing good,” but he remains hospitalized after an angiogram conducted on Monday determined that he has an almost total blockage in his right carotid artery. A decorated driving veteran from Campbellsville, Ky., the 61-year-old Tungate is scheduled to have a stent placed in his artery later this week.
No. 2: Here’s hoping that Tungate experiences a speedy recovery and soon returns to his JRR Motorsports duties at the shop and the track. Tungate, of course, is always at the center of the high jinks going on in the team’s pit area. He sort of assumed the mantle of chief ball-buster with the multi-driver team, which includes Rattliff (the son of team owner James Rattliff), Jason Jameson and national touring driver Josh Rice, since the passing in September 2024 of the team’s longtime manager Jeff Gullett. (Tungate, by the way, was recently named the Northern Allstar tour’s 2025 Jeff Gullett Crew Chief of the Year.) I’ve said it often — hanging around the JRR trailer is always entertaining, as Tungate and a cast of characters keep the atmosphere fun with their jokes and stories.
No. 3: Are you a Jonathan Davenport fan living near Williamston, S.C.? Well, you have a unique opportunity to grab some J.D. merchandise in person but not at a racetrack. With Davenport’s T-shirt trailer making a rare stop at Davenport’s home in Belton, S.C. (his merch director, Jay Hunt, lives in Iowa), J.D.’s wife, Rachel, has it parked this week at her family’s business where she works — Trinity Metal Buildings in Williamston, S.C. — and open daily for fans to stop by and purchase some apparel. Which means Rachel is pulling double duty, tending to her regular work responsibilities while also checking out visitors who wish to buy items from the trailer, which will remain open on Trinity’s grounds through Thursday. “This has been so much fun for me the last week-and-a-half!” Rachel wrote of meeting J.D. fans who’ve come to make purchases.
No. 4: While Rusty Schlenk of McClure, Ohio, was traveling back home on Sunday following his $7,000 victory in Saturday’s Ultimate Southeast Series-sanctioned Blackwater Classic at the reopened Blackwater Speedway in Baker, Fla., he posted a photo to Facebook of his brightly colored Dirt Late Model sitting on jackstands in the bay of a car wash somewhere near Nashville, Tenn. He wrote that he had decided to stop for a “WarshDay while it’s still warm,” which made me think about how we don’t see Dirt Late Models in self-service car washes very often. I do notice that sprint car teams seem to frequent car washes on a regular basis, but it’s not a normal occurrence for many Dirt Late Model travelers. Too bad, because it is always neat to see a race car getting sprayed down next to a line of passenger vehicles.
No. 5: On Saturday, my wife and I went to New York City to see a show, and afterward we experienced a classic taxi ride through midtown Manhattan back to our hotel. The moves our driver pulled off — including filling small gaps to change lanes for better positioning — made me feel like he might be a good fit for today’s aggressive Dirt Late Model racing world. I’m not exactly sure how he’d handle the aero issues of modern racing or how well he’d execute sliders, but he certainly seemed to have some confidence behind the wheel.
