Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Rain can't stop determined Eldora
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; complete Dream coverage):
No. 1: When the edge of a thunderstorm cell caught Eldora Speedway and began dumping rain — and even hail — in buckets at 4:40 p.m. Saturday, the chances of the evening’s Dream XXXII finale being postponed to Sunday seemed high. The downpour only last about 10 minutes, but it was so heavy (nearly three-quarters of a inch fell) that anyone outside when it started was immediately drenched and the Rossburg, Ohio, track’s pit area drainage systems couldn’t keep up with the deluge. With scattered showers still possible for a couple more hours, Saturday’s action had to be in jeopardy, right? Well, that likely would have been the case at a vast majority of tracks across the country. But not Eldora. And especially not on a crown jewel weekend. It’s really amazing how Eldora officials, once it became clear that the chance of rain would push out of the area for the evening, were able to send their packer truck forces onto the soaked surface at 6:15 p.m. and less than 30 minutes later were blowing the 10-minute horn to line up hot laps, which began a bit after 7 p.m. By feature time the half-mile was as racy as ever and the checkered flag was thrown over Bobby Pierce’s winning car at 11:08 p.m. Just a huge shoutout goes to everyone at Eldora for working through the weather conditions and running the show off in such fine fashion that you almost could forget that a monsoon hit barely 45 minutes before the originally scheduled start of hot laps.
No. 2: Eldora’s rain delay created an extra-long pre-race show on the FloRacing broadcast, but fortunately there was an enthusiastic driver in the pit area who happily stepped up to help fill the air time. Ricky Thornton Jr. had already spent Friday’s preliminary program in the announcer’s booth with James Essex and Ben Shelton and decided he had more to offer; when pit reporter Mike Norris approached him for an interview, Thornton commandeered the microphone and took Norris and his cameraman on a tour of the pit area. Thornton bopped around the entire pits, interviewing more than a dozen people, including Tyler Erb, Drake Troutman, Nick Hoffman, Dale McDowell, Brandon Overton, Kyle Bronson, Mark Richards and Max Blair. Perhaps the most interesting chat he had was with the barefoot teenager Trey Mills, who was in his trailer drying out his feet after he was caught in Eldora’s backstretch tunnel during the downpour and had his sneakers and socks swamped by the water that rushed through.
No. 3: Saturday’s Dream heat races included a unique and dramatic brush with nature. Midway through the qualifiers some observers in the pit area noticed a baby bird chirping wildly and walking back-and-forth on the concrete wall between the catchfence and the winner’s stage. The little guy eventually emerged to an open spot on the wall alongside, chirped some more, and then was seen suddenly flying right across the homestretch at low altitude. It landed on the homestretch wall just below the starter’s stand and then fell onto the racetrack, where a safety truck soon pulled up so a track worker could scoop up the birdie and put in the back of the track to remove it from danger.
No. 4: Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga., failed to qualify for the Dream finale for just the second time in 14 attempts since his 2012 victory in the event. It was a rough fate for the 50-year-old, who was looking to go outside the battling duo of Drake Troutman and Kyle Strickler during the fourth heat when Troutman suddenly veered to the right of Strickler entering turn three, taking the air off Clanton’s nose and causing the Georgian to push into the wall. Clanton, a 17-time Dream feature starter, limped into the pit area with his Capital car’s right-front wheel bent out and went on to miss a transfer in a B-main after making repairs. But Clanton’s heat incident did help out the Eldora track crew in one respect: they didn’t have to use shovels to stripe the mud-caked wall in turn three after his prelim because Clanton scraped a large portion of the concrete clean with his machine’s right side.
No. 5: Speaking of Clanton, as I walked through the pit area on Saturday his 12-year-old son, Gunnar, stopped me to very proudly report that he “just got my racing stuff.” By that he meant a helmet, uniform and other safety equipment, which he hopes to soon have a chance to put on to begin his own driving career in a 604 Crate Late Model. It’s no surprise that Gunnar is gunning for a chance to race. It’s in his bloodlines, after all. Beyond his father, both of his grandfathers raced (Shane’s late father Billy and Shane’s wife Michelle’s father Ron Davies) and so have his uncles on both sides of the family (Shane’s siblings and Michelle’s brother Dan).
