Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Australian racer returns to America
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: While I was standing on the new pit-area observation deck outside turn four at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa, I bumped into a friendly visitor from Down Under: Jay Cardy, a 39-year-old Dirt Late Model racer who lives in Western Australia. I met Cardy for the first time nearly two decades, in 2008, when I was the public relations director for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series and he made a solo trip to the United States to spend a stretch of two-and-a-half weeks in July crewing for then tour regular Clint Smth of Senoia, Ga. Visiting the U.S. for the first time since 2019, Cardy flew into Omaha, Neb., on Wednesday with his father Chris, a veteran chassis builder and speed shop owner, and another team member to take in the first Silver Dollar Nationals held at Shelby County.
No. 2: Cardy’s stop at Shelby County as a spectator was the precursor to another leg of his trip abroad. He’s spending the next week in the Southeast with friend and fellow racer Jody Knowles of Tyrone, Ga., who in March traveled to Australia and drove one of Cardy’s Dirt Late Models in five events at the Perth Motorplex. Knowles is reciprocating his ride with Cardy by fielding a car that Cardy will pilot in several Schaeffer’s Southern Nationals events, including Tuesday at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway, Thursday at Sugar Creek Raceway in Blue Ridge, Ga., and Friday at North Georgia Speedway in Chatsworth, Ga. “I’m exciting to run some races over here with Jody,” said Cardy, who is also excited to see Clint Smith at Senoia, the track that the former WoO regular now helps promote.
No. 3: I’ll always recall Cardy’s arrival to the U.S. back in ’08. He was 21 years old and looking for adventure during his summer vacation from teaching metal and woodworking at a local high school so he sent an email to every WoO team asking if they needed some crew help for that year’s Wild West Tour. The only response he received was from Clint Smith, who happily brought him on for the summer swing and even allowed Cardy to run his backup car at Brown County Speedway in Aberdeen, S.D. (though he didn’t qualify). Cardy returned to the States to spend time helping Smith the following two years and in 2010 became the first-ever Australian to start a WoO feature when he drove Smith’s second car to a 21st-place finish at Autodrome Drummond in Drummondville, Quebec.
No. 4: When Bobby Pierce told me before Friday’s dual-heat qualifying program at Shelby County that veteran UMP modified driver Jeff Leka, a longtime family friend who often helps Pierce’s efforts, would serve as his signal guy with his father Bob still hospitalized recovering from a stroke, he noted that it would be Leka’s first time handling the job so he spent some time going over the signals he’d be looking for from Leka. He also mentioned something about Leka not exactly being a fan of signal sticks. I asked Leka and he confirmed that he had a frustrating experience with them years ago. While he pointed out that he’s never handled them “because I’ve always been in the seat,” he had a crewman make a set of signal sticks and he decided to try them out in a race at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., rather then rely on the hand signals he had throughout his career. But he became confused with the movements his crewman made with the signal sticks, so after the race he grabbed the sticks and “threw them in the trash can.” So it was no more signal sticks for Leka the racer.
No. 5: Veteran driver and car owner Al Humphrey of Giltner, Neb., doesn’t have his car entered in this weekend’s Silver Dollar Nationals, but he’s in the pit area visiting with his many friends. He’s also been challenging me with some statistical questions on the event that’s now run in Iowa but originated in 2011 at his home state’s I-80 Speedway. His first question on Thursday night: Who is the highest-finishing Nebraska driver in the history of the SDN? He said he was pretty sure he knew the correct answer and it might be surprising to many people, and I came back Friday to tell him that it was Madison’s Travis Dickes, who finished 10th in the 2013 event. Dickes, who drove Humphrey’s No. 6 to a 12th-place finish the next year, was the driver whom Humphrey thought had the high-water spot among Nebraska drivers. After I told him, Humphrey posed a second question: What’s the best starting spot a Nebraska driver has had in the Silver Dollar Nationals finale? With a little research I found that honor belongs to Norfolk’s Tad Pospisil, who started the 2015 event from the outside pole (and will start 13th in tonight’s 80-lapper as the lone Nebraskan to lock into one of the 16 available positions in Friday’s qualifying). Humphrey, by the way, finished 12th in his lone SDN finale appearance in 2011, though he did enter the event six more times, most recently in ’23 at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D.
