Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Top-five streak rolls on for Blair
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: With Max Blair of Centerville, Pa., running his streak of consecutive top-five finishes on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series to eight following two more over the weekend at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway (third) and Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway (fifth), it had me wondering how it stacks up with other similar runs. From just a cursory examination of recent Lucas Oil history, the 36-year-old driver is reaching rarified air. He’s a single top-five away from matching Hudson O’Neal’s season-opening surge of nine straight for this year’s longest streak — points leader Devin Moran’s best top-five streak so far in 2026 is five — and during the circuit’s ’25 campaign only three drivers exceeded Blair’s current streak in full-field events: Moran (11), Jonathan Davenport (nine) and Ricky Thornton Jr. (nine).
No. 2: Blair hasn’t scored a victory during his current streak — in fact, he’s still searching for his first-ever full-field feature win (he captured a Firecracker 100 semifeature in 2023 at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa.) — but that doesn’t diminish what he’s doing at all. He started it by being the only driver to finish among the top-five in all four of the Speedweeks-closing events March 4-7 at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga., and then added finishes third at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway and fifth at Atomic Speedway in Alma, Ohio, before logging two more during the weekend’s Mid-Atlantic swing. Can Blair keep the top-five streak going in this weekend’s Lucas Oil doubleheader at Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis and Florence Speedway in Union, Ky.? He finished fourth in his only previous Circle City visit in 2021 with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, but he’s run well at Florence in limited visits, including a fourth-place finish in 2024’s North-South 100.
No. 3: I looked back at the Lucas Oil Series champions over the past decade and their longest full-field top-five streaks in their respective title-winning season and found that Blair’s current run compares favorably with most of them and, in some cases, even surpasses them. The longest top-five streak by a champ since 2015 is 14 by Jimmy Owens (’20) and Ricky Thornton Jr. (’24). Next longest is 11 by Devin Moran (’25) and 10 by Scott Bloomquist (’16). The remainder of the champions’ top-five streaks: nine for Josh Richards (’17) and Jonathan Davenport (’19); six for Davenport (’15) and Tim McCreadie (’21); five for Davenport (’18) and McCreadie (’22); and four Hudson O’Neal (’23).
No. 4: Longtime Integra Shocks general manager Brian Daugherty pulled double-duty Friday at Georgetown Speedway, not only providing technical assistance to customers — including Lucas Oil Series regular Clay Harris of Jupiter, Fla., who had spent the past week-plus working at Daugherty’s shop in Punxsutawney, Pa. — but also playing the role of car owner fielding his No. 56 Crate Late Model for Christian Schneider of Pittsburgh, Pa. Daugherty said he plans to chase the RUSH Crate Late Model Series this season with Schneider, who lost fourth place in Friday’s season-opening 40-lap feature for the tour on the final circuit when he spun coming to the checkered flag.
No. 5: Speaking of Georgetown, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series is headed there for the first time since 2018 on May 13, for the $20,000-to-win Visit Delaware 51. It’s already a big midweek show for the Ken Adams-owned track, but he’s making it even bigger with the announcement Monday that the Super DIRTcar Series for big-block modifieds will join the card for a 50-lap, $7,500-to-win event. The blockbuster doubleheader — dubbed the Delaware Diamond Clash with sponsorship from the Delaware Sports Tourism Capital Investment Fund — will mark the first time the WoO Late Models and big-blocks of the Super DIRTcar Series race on the same card away from February’s DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., and November’s World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C. The big-block roots in me like this twinbill.
