Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Victory for one of Hell Tour's stalwarts
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: Frank Heckenast Jr.’s $10,000 DIRTcar Summer Nationals victory Friday at Red Hill Raceway in Sumner, Ill., was his first triumph in nearly six years and just the sixth of his career on the annual series, but there’s no doubt the soon-to-be 39-year-old driver from Frankfort, Ill., is a stalwart on the Hell Tour. Friday marked his 210th career feature start on a circuit that he’s frequented since he was in his late teens. Heckenast, who has 73 top-five and 133 top-10 finishes on the series, has entered at least one Summer Nationals event every year since 2005. Just one season over that span, in 2007, did he not start a single feature (he failed to qualify in his three attempts). Heckenast’s busiest and best stretch of Summer Nationals competition came from 2018-20 when he was a regular each year, recorded four of his six career victories and registered points finishes of second, third and second.
No. 2: Heckenast owns one of the longest current streaks of entering at least one Summer Nationals event per season, standing right alongside such drivers as Mark Voigt of Marine, Ill., and Michael Kloos of Trenton, Ill. (streaks dating back to 2004) and Ryan Unzicker of El Paso, Ill., and Rich Bell of Sheffield, Ill. (both since ’05). There are at least four drivers with longer active Hell Tour participation streaks — Kevin Weaver of Gibson City, Ill., Brian Shirley of Chatham, Ill., Rusty Schlenk of McClure, Ohio, and Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ill. — but we’ll have to do some digging to confirm exactly how many years they’ve entered at least one race because The Third Turn statistical website I used for researching has complete Summer Nationals information dating back only to 2002. Also notable is that Erb’s streak is in jeopardy of ending because he hasn’t yet run a Summer Nationals show this season and doesn’t currently have any of the remaining dates on his schedule.
No. 3: Regarding this Summer Nationals participation streak conversation, you might be wondering where veterans Billy Moyer of Batesville, Ark., Shannon Babb of Moweaqua, Ill., and Jason Feger of Bloomington, Ill., stack up. We’re going to look deeper into Moyer’s pre-2002 Hell Tour history, but it’s entirely possible he’s entered at least one Summer Nationals race every year since its launch in 1986 except the 2021-22 seasons when he ran none. The only year since 2002 that Babb hasn’t entered a Hell Tour program is ’08 (when he was a World of Outlaws Late Model Series regular driving for NASCAR racer Clint Bowyer) while Feger has made Summer Nationals appearances every year since ’02 with the exception of ’13 (he was suspended from World Racing Group events for the entire summer due to his Illini 100 tire infraction); it’s likely their streaks extend to years before ’02.
No. 4: On Friday morning WoO regular Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, took to Facebook to announce his engagement to Emma Hodge, who is due to deliver the couple’s first child later this year. The 29-year-old driver put out his marriage news with a quote you’d expect from the irreverent racer: “Like Beyoncé said … ‘If you like it, you better put a ring on it.’ ”
No. 5: Speaking of Erb, when the DIRTVision broadcast crew worked the pit area of recent WoO events to ask racers, crew members and officials an Independence Day-related question — “Who’s the last driver you want in charge of fireworks?” — it was Terbo who was singled out by the vast majority of the people who appeared on the resulting social media video. Today Erb posted his “official statement” in response, offering a humorous take that gives a wink to his reported penchant for shooting off M-80s and other rockets: “At this time, I can neither confirm nor deny that I enjoy the use of fireworks. This position is due primarily to a probationary status that I may or may not currently be on. Thank you for respecting my alleged legal ambiguity. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July.”
