Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Briggs honors dad at Stateline special
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: There isn’t a race that means more to Boom Briggs of Bear Lake, Pa., than this Wednesday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series stop at Stateline Speedway in Busti, N.Y. It’s the inaugural Rick Briggs Memorial, run in honor of his father, a former Dirt Late Model racer who died in 2017 at the age of 68. Boom, who turns 55 on July 29, now competes on a limited basis as he focuses on fielding a WoO team with his brother, Steve, for driver Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., but he couldn’t miss this $15,000-to-win midweek special at the track that sits just minutes from his home. He even has a special look for his Longhorn Chassis, changing his number from his familiar No. 99B to No. 95 as part of a throwback scheme honoring his father. The red, orange and yellow car harkens to the first Dirt Late Model that his father drove in 1985; it’s not hand-painted like Rick’s machine was four decades ago (it’s a wrap), but it does include the “Tobber Chassis” insignia that refers to that particular car’s owner and builder, Toby Jordan, a cousin of Rick Briggs and Chub Frank, who will also compete in Wednesday’s show. “This car means so much to me because it’s a tribute to my dad,” Boom wrote on Facebook. “I know Dad would be proud.”
No. 2: You have to like all the extra hoopla surrounding the Rick Briggs Memorial that’s being done to enhance the event. For starters, more than $2,300 in lap money has been collected. I’m always a fan of tracks going the extra mile to sell lap sponsorships. There were also a bunch of pre-race festivities drawing attention to the race scheduled for Tuesday, including a meet-and-greet and car display with Boom Briggs, McCreadie and other drivers during the afternoon at a Tops food store in Jamestown, N.Y., followed by a race car parade through downtown Jamestown that ends at Shawbucks Bar & Grill and the National Comedy Center. They’ll be a get-together for racers and fans at the restaurant Tuesday night as well.
No. 3: Defending WoO champion and current points leader Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., will bid for a series record of his own in Wednesday’s event at Stateline. He’s riding a six-race win streak on the national tour, tied for the longest such streak in WoO history with himself (2024) and Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky. (2012). Not that it really matters how much experience Pierce has at Stateline — he’s become pretty darn adept at winning even at tracks he’s never seen before — but his only previous start at the third-mile oval came in a WoO show on May 23, 2023. In a race that marked Nick Hoffman’s first-ever WoO victory, Pierce was the night’s fast qualifier and won a heat but climbed just one position from his fourth starting spot to finish third in the 40-lap feature.
No. 4: Six consecutive wins in national touring series competition is a remarkable accomplishment considering Pierce and Lanigan are the only drivers to ever pull it off. Several drivers, however, have reached five victories in a row. On that WoO side, that group includes Billy Moyer of Batesville, Ark. (1988 and ’89 during the first two-year incarnation of the WoO circuit) and Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill. (twice, both times in 2019). Two drivers have ripped off five straight in Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action with both occurrences coming during the 2015 season: Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., and Scott Bloomquist of Mooresburg, Tenn. It should also be noted that in 2022 Davenport won in six straight starts on the Lucas Oil Series, but that streak included only four full-field features with the other two triumphs in split-field semifeatures.
No. 5: Stateline’s WoO event makes me realize that this week marks 20 years since I began working full-time in Dirt Late Model racing. I had covered the division on a limited basis for more than a decade prior to ’06 while I was writing for Area Auto Racing News in Trenton, N.J., but it was July 1, 2006, that I shifted to a full concentration on Dirt Late Models when I covered my first race as the WoO public relations director — at Stateline, in fact, where local Dick Barton was victorious in the national tour’s feature. I moved over to DirtonDirt in 2014, and now it’s two decades for me in the Dirt Late Model world. Time sure does fly.
