Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: ‘Daddy T,’ Sorensen and Mansfield
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: Tyler Erb has come to be known as Uncle T, an affectionate nickname hung on him for his popularity and easy-going nature with young fans. He’s embraced the moniker with his own social media posts. But the 29-year-old from New Waverly, Ohio, will soon have to update his tag to “Daddy T” after he publicly announced on Thursday that he’s going to become a father for the first time with his girlfriend, Emma Hodge, due to deliver a baby boy late this year. Erb wrote that he and Hodge “are beyond excited” over the news and they “cannot wait to meet our little guy and begin this new chapter together.”
No. 2: A takeaway I had from watching Thursday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature at Wayne County Speedway in Orrville, Ohio: Dustin Sorensen of Rochester, Minn., is making strides in his third year as a tour regular. His fifth-place finish marked his second top-five in as many nights — he was fourth in Wednesday’s Conor Bobik Memorial at Marion Center (Pa.) Raceway — and, on his way to it, the 25-year-old just caught my eye with the aggressive, confident moves he was making. If I was putting money on the next first-time WoO winner, I think I’d throw some down on Sorensen.
No. 3: How about the weather that Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway owner Matt Tifft is catching for his huge WoO-sanctioned Blaster 57 weekend? The former NASCAR driver-turned-promoter battled a cold winter and wet spring as he rehabilitated the facility that sat idle since its closing in 2019, and he managed to have cars turn only a handful of laps on the new surface he laid down before May 15’s grand reopening program. Now this weekend’s doubleheader — a $12,000-to-win preliminary tonight followed by Saturday’s finale boasting a $57,000 top prize — is being contested with a superb forecast calling for sunny skies and a high temperature around 70 both days. There haven’t been many Dirt Late Model shows lately where everyone has been able to completely disregard the radar on their weather apps so it’s nice to see Mansfield’s big deal
No. 4: When I looked through this week’s Throwback Thursday slideshow here on DirtonDirt — going back to Nov. 16, 2003’s Southern All Star-sanctioned Blue-Gray 100 at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C. — there were a couple especially interesting photos. One showed a Bomber car sitting above the homestretch wall during the racing action. The other was a shot of the track’s starter flagging the race from the raised arm of a bucket truck. What caused these strange scenes? Our Todd Turner was there covering the event for National Dirt Digest and wrote a story detailing how Joe Ramey crashed into the catchfence and starter’s stand during a consolation race. His car ripped down fencing, bent fence poles, scattered airborne pieces of concrete and eventually slammed into the base of the flagstand, which nearly came crashing down. The accident caused a few injuries and forced the Sunday afternoon event to be delayed nearly two hours as officials worked to make repairs. According to Todd’s report, a roll of fencing was rewired to replace the damaged fence while a grader was used to cut down the built-up mud along the track's frontstretch wall that could unintentionally act as a ramp for an out-of-control car. Then some on-the-fly measures were taken: three track-packing/push cars were parked between the fence and the grandstands to provide an extra barrier along the damaged fencing (fans were blocked from sitting in the first three rows) and the bucket truck was brought in for the flagman. That certainly made for a unique day at Cherokee.
No. 5: Last Saturday’s rain-postponed Show-Me 100 finale at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., gave me the opportunity to catch some of the MARS event at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway that was broadcast on FloRacing and Amazon Prime. And thus I was able to hear the voice of Jake Green, a 21-year-old from Pontiac, Ill., who joined FALS announcer Mike Norris in the booth to call some of the MARS action and serve as the lead announcer for the night’s stock car special. I’ve seen Green — known as Jake from State Farm by many at FALS — every year at Fairbury for over a decade, so I’ve seen him grow up from the smiling youngster who would help his father park haulers during the Prairie Dirt Classic to now racing himself (he’s competed in the modified division) and calling races. I must say, Green sounded much older than his years as he announced alongside Norris. He has potential on the microphone! Congrats also to Green, who works with the FloRacing video crew at selected events, for receiving his two-year diploma from Parkland College in Champaign, Ill., last week. He plans to move on in the fall to pursue his bachelor's degree in mass media at Illinois State University in Bloomington, Ill., following in the footsteps of DirtonDirt luminaries and ISU alums Michael and Amber Rigsby, Derek Kessinger and Michael “Tern” Reiners.
