Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: McCreadie legacy always present
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: I’ve seen quite a few posts about Tim McCreadie today on social media, which makes sense since he won last night’s 45-lap World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature at Selinsgrove (Pa.) Speedway. But I’ve also seen multiple posts with photos of his late father “Barefoot” Bob McCreadie, the legendary big-block modified driver from Watertown, N.Y. The elder McCreadie passed away two years ago today at the age of 73, so the remembrances are flowing — and it’s fitting that T-Mac is coming off his second WoO victory of the season. Last year McCreadie actually won his first WoO feature for the Briggs Transport team May 15 at Raceway 7 in Conneaut, Ohio. This season he hit paydirt one day before the anniversary of losing his dad and wasn’t overcome with emotion like he was a year ago, but you can bet Barefoot Bob was on Timmy’s mind after he claimed Selinsgrove’s $20,000 top prize.
No. 2: McCreadie’s Briggs Transport racing program will pick up a new crew member following this week’s Delaware-Pennsylvania swing with the arrival of Dillen Young, an 18-year-old graduating senior from Warner, Okla., who on Monday will join the Bear Lake, Pa.-based team. Young has spent the past four years as a member of the Warner High School Racing Team, a unique program that the school formed to provide a platform for “education, growth and inspiration” as students gain hands-on experience in motorsports while developing technical skills, teamwork and professionalism to prepare them for future careers. According to Boom Briggs, after his family-operated team made a Facebook post in early April advertising their search for a new crew member, the teacher of the Oklahoma school’s racing program reached out to Dave Warren, the team’s social media director, and worked with Warren and Briggs’s brother, Steve, to place Young with the team as the teenager looks to pursue a career in the industry. Young will join Briggs’s nephew, Logan Jaquay, as a full-time crew member on the road with McCreadie for the rest of the season.
No. 3: Bobby Pierce’s 50th career World of Outlaws Late Model Series on Wednesday at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway put him at a milestone reached by just three other drivers — Brandon Sheppard (89 wins), Josh Richards (78) and Darrell Lanigan (74) in a remarkably short period of time. The 29-year-old star’s first-ever WoO win came on April 3, 2021, at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway in the 74th series feature start of his career since he debuted with the tour as a 13-year-old on May 7, 2010, at Lincoln (Ill.) Speedway. Since that initial triumph, he’s become a WoO regular (in 2023) and has 49 victories in 168 starts. After putting up big checkered flag numbers from 2023-25 (14, 13, 11), Pierce has eight victories in 22 starts this season and is closing in on grabbing a share of the WoO record for most consecutive seasons with double-figure wins currently held by Sheppard (four straight from 2017-20).
No. 4: A breakdown of Pierce’s 50 WoO triumphs shows he’s won at 32 tracks in 17 starts. He owns multiple WoO wins at 11 tracks with his most prolific ovals being Farmer City and Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis. (four apiece). Four of his eight victories this season have come at new tracks for him, including Georgetown where he raced for the first time.
No. 5: I was planning to cover Thursday’s WoO stop at Selinsgrove, which is roughly 90 minutes from my residence in Ephrata, Pa., but I made a last-minute decision to skip the night due to a development on my home front. Our family cat, Jack, had been in declining health in recent weeks and he unfortunately took a turn for the worse Thursday, forcing us to call a veterinarian to our house to end his suffering and leading me to stay home to be with my wife and son as we said goodbye to our trusty feline who was, quite incredibly, just two months away from his 23rd birthday. It’s something how a pet becomes embedded in your life. Today’s the first day we’ve spent in our current home without Jack since we moved in over 15 years ago, and it’s certainly strange not having him laying in the foyer just outside my office — or even lying next to me on my desk with his paw ever-so-close to touching my laptop keys — as I write this.
