Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: J.D. embraces his cherry pickin' critics
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: Jonathan Davenport has heard critics saying that’s he been avoiding competition with some of the race choices he’s made with his independent schedule in 2026 — like, for instance, going last weekend to Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark., where he swept the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series-sanctioned Bad Boy 98. What’s the 42-year-old superstar’s response? Brushing it out with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, including offering a new themed “Cherry Picker” T-shirt for sale that features two cherries dangling from a hydraulic engine hoist. “Been accused of it lately,” began a comment on the cherry-picking charges on Davenport’s Facebook page. “Don’t care. We’re going to keep cashing big checks and racking up huge stacks.” The T-shirts, by the way, proved so popular when they were revealed online Thursday that Davenport’s merchandise head, Jay Hunt, had to temporarily stop taking orders Friday afternoon “to make sure we could get enough inventory to meet demand.”
No. 2: My view of the cherry-picking barbs that have long been thrown at accomplished drivers whom some people believe are racing below their level? I say get over it. Especially in today’s ultra-expensive motorsports world, racers are going to make decisions on where they race with finances in mind or, in some cases, because they simply like a certain track or want to run at a place that allows their car owner, family and friends to see them. I believe that if fans or other competitors don’t want to see full-time professional standouts like Davenport enter regional events, then they should lobby the track promoters to not offer first-place prizes for the races that are comparable to national touring shows. Get rid of five-figure payoffs for regional touring and unsanctioned events (Batesville’s finale paid $12,000-to-win) and make those races pay a maximum of, say, $4,000- or $5,000-to-win — while keeping the same total purse by paying more money throughout the field — and those races won’t be as attractive of an option for drivers who race for a living to bypass national-level events.
No. 3: How’s this for a 16-year-old kid experiencing diametrically opposed Friday nights in consecutive weeks? On May 8 teenager racer Brock Pinkerous of Ellenville, N.Y., contended for a $10,000 victory in a Jay’s Automotive United Late Model Series event at Outlaw Speedway in Dundee, N.Y., until tangling with fellow New Yorker Demetrious Drellos and getting knocked from the lead after an angry Drellos ran into Pinkerous’s car under caution and flattened his tire; following the feature Pinkerous had words with Drellos inside Drellos’s trailer. Exactly one week later, though, Pinkerous was in an entirely different scene: he skipped racing last night to dress up in a tux and attend his high school’s prom.
No. 4: Ryan Markham of Ashland, Ohio, is an accomplished veteran Dirt Late Model driver who’s been racing and winning in his home region for three decades. The 54-year-old has a teammate now in his 19-year-old daughter Emma, who made her Dirt Late Model debut Friday in the grand reopening program for Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway. While Emma fell short of making the Super Late Model feature by three spots in the B-main, it was a memorable evening for both her father and mother Lora. “She’s always told us she wanted to race!” Lora wrote on Ryan’s racing Facebook page. “From the time she was little she said she wanted a mini-wedge. It just makes sense since she’s grown up in the pits the past 19 years. She’s been out in the shop a lot working with Ryan and the guys getting her car put together. She loves racing and is passionate about it … we’re really proud of Emma for taking a chance on racing. And I’m glad she has the best teacher in her dad.”
No. 5: There was a noticeable change with the DIRTVision broadcast crew for this week’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series swing through Delaware and Pennsylvania as pit reporter Ashton Smyth was absent. World Racing Group officials confirmed Smyth is no longer working for the company as she faces charges of animal abuse in relation to a recent situation discovered at the apartment where she was living in North Carolina. Peyton Williams and Brian Ward have handled pit-reporting duties for this week’s WoO shows and will likely continue switching on-and-off as the schedule moves forward.
