Weekly Notebook presented by FK Rod Ends
Notes: Field trips give Michigan driver an edge
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Greg Gokey (randyellen.smugmug.com)
People of a certain age remember school field trips when teachers would load up students and head to a bottling plant, factory, bakery or museum for learning experiences that might not otherwise click in the classroom.
Buckley, Mich., Dirt Late Model racer Greg Gokey and his car owner Scott Phillips have taken a page out of that playbook in making a few field trips of their own in recent offseasons — for learning experiences they might not otherwise get in the race shop.
The winter trips to Rocket Chassis, Malcuit Race Engines and Keith Berner's AfterBurner Performance have paid off with improved performances for Gokey, who has tallied the best two-season stretch of his career with 17 victories since last season. With 2024 winding down, Gokey is putting the finishing touches on an eight-victory season that includes championships at Tri-City Motor Speedway in Auburn, Mich., and Merritt Speedway in Lake City, Mich., putting him atop DirtonDirt.com's Weekly Notebook presented by FK Rod Ends.
"It definitely improves us," the 42-year-old Gokey said of offseason journeys to Ohio and West Virginia. "I mean, every time we go somewhere, it's never just a whim just to go there. It's to go there and learn about what we're working with more. You get to see the manufacturing side of it, you get to watch the cars, how they're building them, the tricks of the trades, the in's and out's of them."
In his fourth season with the potent Scott's Quik Stop-sponsored No. 50, Gokey is hitting his stride after more than 20 seasons of competition.
"Really at the end of the year last year, we hit on a few things that really took us off for this year and then we just kind of capitalized on the different direction we went and it just was good for us all year," Gokey said. "There's only a few nights that we struggled a little bit, track conditions-wise, but other than that, I think we just got it out of the box and it was just fast. We worked our tail off to get it that way. There's always a lot of work during the week and for prepping and all that stuff."
The offseason manufacturing visits have "just made the whole package just great because I knew exactly what we were working with the whole time," Gokey added.
Gokey's racing career began in the modified division in 2002. He moved into Late Models in 2005, then went back and forth between the divisions a few more years before settling into Late Models permanently about 15 years ago.
(When asked how long he'd been racing, Gokey deadpanned: “Too long. … I really don't keep up with my stats too much. We just go and race, try and win and see what happens.")
He tallied a couple of track championships at the now-closed Cherry Raceway and was good for a handful of victories most seasons driving self-owned cars. Landing the ride with Phillips, who previously drove the No. 50 himself and has tapped other drivers, including Travis Stemler, over the years, Gokey has settled in nicely, although there was an adjustment for 2024.
With Phillips, of Marlette, Mich., resuming his truck-pulling competitions, the team moved the race cars to Gokey's shop in Buckley, giving him a more significant role in cleaning and preparing the equipment after mostly being a helmet-carrying hired gun for three seasons.
Returning to daily preparation of a race car, "man, that's a lot of work," said Gokey, who wakes up at 5 a.m. daily for his foreman job with Top View Tree Service. "In the last few years, (Phillips has) pretty well washed everything and taken care of everything."
Phillips is "only a phone call away" and can come assist if needed, but Gokey often works his job until early evening and then stays in the race shop until midnight. While the change has meant longer shop hours, it's also given Gokey more intimate knowledge of the equipment.
"I think we're 100 percent ready every time we went" to the track, Gokey said. "It's just something, working on your car at your shop and just fine-tuning it a little bit more to your liking, maybe, to where you get that little extra garage time vs. (Phillips) has it has his place and he's three hours from me. To work on it every night at his place just wasn't feasible for me and my work stuff, to put in the tinker time, you know?"
Gokey has been able to apply some of the hands-on knowledge he received in the offseason journeys to Rocket, Malcuit and AfterBurner.
"When I started with Scott, I was kind of behind the times of tuning and stuff and just learning about (race cars). I never had that financial backing to go down and spend three days at Keith Berner's or to go to Rocket and spend that kind of time and money for the education part of it," Gokey said.
"Scott sent me to a lot of stuff to figure out how to tune that stuff properly. And even he learned a lot. We just put it all together. Over the last four years that we raced, it seems like every winter we kinda come up with a plan to go do something to better ourselves. We go down to the motor shop and watch our motors on the dynos and and play with them a little bit, we got them on the dynos to see where our power bands are, or changing carburetors for the track to be slower or slicker. We do so much in that field that it just takes us one step further every year. It just seems like we get better and better and better.
"The first year I started with them, we went right down to Berner's and spent two or three days down there. Berner showed me how to go through the cars, how he does it, you know? I really went to Berner's thinking I was gonna find a magical solution, you know, to be like the best right out of the box, and that's not how it was and that's not how Berner is. He really just gets right in depth with you and teaches you about your race car and how to tune it and how it performs and we went and tested with him and it was a good thing."
It's got Gokey at the top of his game with a solid season that included a runner-up finish to Dona Marcoullier on the two-track Allstar Performance Challenge Series, specials at Tri-City Motor and Merritt. Gokey enjoys running against top competition.
"I've always wanted to put myself up against the best in Michigan and that's what I strive for, is just racing against some guys like Dona and Brandon (Thirlby) and (Eric) Spangler and Travis, to learn. They're the fastest guys around here and I like the competition of it to go out there and race against the best that's in our area," he said. "I've done a lot of (racing at) the little local joint stuff — and I'm not saying there's not good talent there by any means because there is — but just not that stiff competition every week in, week out. (Tougher competition) makes you feel like you're accomplishing a lot more. And Scott pushes me towards that area. He really thrives on the competition part of it.
"It feels like we go to any racetrack, whether the best show up or, if you had just a little local joint, I mean, every time you unload it feels like we can win it at any minute."
One hole in Gokey's resume is a victory in Merritt's prestigious Wood Tic, a formerly modest-paying event that is now Michigan's richest race at $36,000-to-win when Illinois interloper Frank Heckenast Jr. won it last month. Gokey was running well at mid-summer — he swept Tri-City Motor and Merritt action on each weekend surrounding the Wood Tic — but he wasn't a factor in the lucrative event, finishing 17th.
"We just felt like we were right there ready to compete for that. And, you know, the track conditions changed a lot from the previous weeks leading up to it, to actually racing that race," Gokey said. "So it kind of threw us for a little loop and we didn't run all that great for the Wood Tic. It kinda makes you sit down in your chair and start thinking about things, and how to tune better and to perform better in certain track conditions."
Labor Day weekend Gokey won at Tri-City Motor Speedway and, entering the season-ending Allstar Performance Challenge doubleheader at Merritt, was neck-and-neck for the miniseries points title with Marcoullier, the talented Houghton Lake, Mich., driver who started his career alongside Gokey. Marcoullier eked out the title by just a few points over Gokey.
"It takes us back to the old times. I think me and Dona started at Cherry Speedway the same night of racing in race cars and it kind of took us back to that old memory kind of things," Gokey said. "We really had a fun weekend. I mean, we raced each other hard and it came right down to the wire ... just a really fun battle all year."
Weekly highlights
• Continuing his summer hot streak over Labor Day weekend, Dustin Strand of Grand Forks, N.D., won Aug. 30 at his hometown River Cities Speedway and added Aug. 31-Sept. 1 victories at Greenbush (Minn.) Raceway Park. Since July 2, he's won 13 of 18 Late Model starts with three runner-up finishes and two DNFs.
• Hosting competitive racing for the first time in five years, the Tri-County Fairgrounds in Mendota, Ill., ran a Sept. 1 Super Late Model event with Rich Bell of Sheffield, Ill., topping a 12-car field. He earned $1,000 for the 15-lap victory.
• Trevor Collins of Seaford, Del., edged Dale Hollidge Sept. 1 at Potomac Speedway in Budds Creek, Md., for a $4,000 Super Late Model victory in the Huey Wilcoxon Memorial.
• Winning the Crate Late Model portion of the Fox Labor Day Bash, Bo Slay of Milton, Fla., pocketed a $2,029 payday for winning at his hometown Southern Raceway.
• Rallying from his 20th starting spot, Avery Taylor of South Shore, Ky., led the final five laps of Sept. 1's Labor Day weekend special at Mudlick Valley Raceway. Taylor pocketed $3,500 at the Wallingford, Ky., track in a race fourth-finishing Derek Fisher led for 25 laps.
• In a holiday weekend special at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., Mark Whitener of Middleburg, Fla. (604 Crates) and Bubba Roling of Clay Hill, Fla. (602 Crates) scored $2,000 victories in Sept. 1 competition.
• Scoring a two-victory Labor Day weekend, Braden Bilger of Jacksonville, Ill., won home-state races Aug. 31 at Banner's Spoon River Speedway and Sept. 1 at Quincy's Adams County Speedway.
First things first
Recent first-time occurrences at the dirt track:
• Winning from the pole Aug. 31 at Shawano (Wis.) Speedway, Andy Karl of Spencer, Wis., grabbed his first career Late Model triumph. The 34-year-old won in a 12-year old Rocket Chassis.
• Kody Koski of New Richmond, Wis., the grandson of Hall of Fame Canadian driver Tom Nesbitt, notched his first USRA Limited Late Model victory Sept. 1 at Rice Lake (Wis.) Speedway.
Weekly news briefs
• Park Jefferson Speedway in Jefferson, S.D., is making plans to shorten its current 4/10 track layout this month in time for Sept. 27-28's Iron Cup event. The track plans to follow a similar layout to the quarter-mile Boone (Iowa) Speedway with potentially a slightly larger radius in the corners, according to owner Wayne Becker. A diagram shows the new backstretch running virtually through the center of the infield of the current layout. The "business decision" to shorten the track came from the desire to draw more racers who compete on similiar-sized tracks and the cut down on costs of maintaining and prepping the surface, Becker said. Parts of the project include relocating light poles and extensive earth-moving. The track has hosted Late Model events this season including several Thursday night events and a Repairable Vehicles.com Tri-State Series event.
• Callaway Raceway in Fulton, Mo., was dark Aug. 30 because of the recent death of the father of director of operations Amy Lewis. The track's final points race is scheduled for Sept. 6.
• Under the promotion of new owner Ryan Williams, Ponderosa Speedway in Junction City, Ky., is reopening Sept. 6 with a six-division program that includes Crate Late Models. Find details at ponderosaspeedway.net.
• Central Missouri Speedway in Warrensburg has dropped the Late Model division from Sept. 14's Hog Road Nationals program because of low car counts, according to promoter Sam Stoecklin. The division drew four entries for Sept. 1's event won by Tucker Cox.
• After enduring summer flooding, Rapid Speedway is making plans to get the track and facilities back in shape so the Rock Rapids, Iowa, oval can run a complete 2025 schedule, promoters Darrin and Michelle Korthals announced last week. The Lyon County Fair Board recently approved the plans to continue racing competition at the fairgrounds. "Thank you so much to all of you for your support this summer," the promoters said in a statement. "Whether it was thoughts, prayers, words or encouragement, volunteering for cleanup, or monetary donations; you all are appreciated. We will have updates soon of more volunteer opportunities as we start the rebuilding process."
• Hattiesburg (Miss.) Speedway will switch to Saturday nights from Friday nights beginning with the Sept. 7 program, which includes its regular divisions including 604 Crate Racin' USA Late Models.
• Retired Ohio Dirt Late Model racer Mark Banal, the winner of the 2005 Big Kahuna in Cumberland, Md., and a frequent starter in major events at Pennsboro (W.Va.) Speedway during his 35-year career, died Sept. 1 at a hospice care center in Lincolnton, N.C. He was 69. He'd suffered from dementia in recent years, according to his son Steve Banal. Driving the No. T8 car from 1979-2014 while racing out of Dillonvale, Ohio, Banal racked up an estimated 150 victories and six track championships, winning two titles apiece at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway in Imperial, Pa., St Clairsville (Ohio) Speedway and Motordome 70 Speedway in Smithton, Pa.
Weekly points
DIRTcar (Supers): Jason Feger of Bloomington, Ill., has 2,432 points to lead Rusty Schlenk (2,174) and Tyler Erb (2,164).
IMCA (Limiteds): Cory Dumpert of York, Neb., has 794 points to lead Travis Denning (788) and Evan Miller (774).
POWRi (Limiteds): Tucker Cox of Jefferson City, Mo., has 5,960 points to lead Alan Westling (5,510) and Kyle Graves (5,380).
USRA (Limiteds): New leader Cade Nelson of Hermantown, Minn., has 4,215 points to lead Matt Larson (4,205) and Jason McFadden (3,481).
WISSOTA (Limiteds): Tyler Peterson of Hickson, N.D., has 2,246 points to lead Shane Sabraski (2,209) and Dustin Strand (2,201).
American All-Stars (Crates): Brandon Fouts of Kite, Ky., has 600 points to lead A.J. Hicks (572) and Gunner Johnson (548).
Crate Racin’ USA (602 Crates): New leader Bryson Mitchell of Russellville, Ala., has 693 points to lead Colby Ponds (689) and Josh Parkerson (686).
Crate Racin’ USA (604 Crates): David Williamson of Seminary, Miss., has 693 points to lead Chase Holland (680) and Shannon Lee (678).
DIRTcar (Crates): Dakota Ewing of Warrensburg, Ill., has 1,490 points to lead Tommy Elston (1,445) and Chase Osterhoff (1,435).
Fastrak (Crates): Brent Trimble of Morgantown, W.Va., has 634 points to lead Braeden Dillinger (631) and George Casto III (617).
RUSH (Crates): Jeremy Wonderling of Wellsville, N.Y., has 1,344 points to lead Jason Genco (1,330) and Breyton Santee (1,311).
Upcoming weekly specials
Among non-touring and independent special events coming up for Late Models at dirt tracks around the country:
Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway (Sept. 6): The makeup of the Butch Renninger Memorial pays $7,333-to-win for Super Late Models on the undercard of a $10,000-to-win sprint car program.
River Cities Speedway, Grand Forks, N.D. (Sept. 6-7): The 18th annual John Seitz Memorial caps the track's Late Model season with a $9,200-to-win event for WISSOTA Late Models.
Marion Center (Pa.) Raceway (Sept. 6-7): The doubleheader weekend for multiple divisions is highlighted by $3,000- and $5,000-to-win Super Late Model programs.
Thunderbird Raceway, Muskegon, Mich. (Sept. 6-7): The inaugural Lloyd Londo Memorial Rolling Thunder weekend includes a $2,000-to-win program for Super Late Models with prelims Friday and features Saturday; Crate Late Models are among undercard divisions and practice is scheduled for Thursday.
Gondik Law Speedway, Superior, Wis. (Sept. 6-7): The Northern Nationals is capped by a $4,000-to-win event for WISSOTA Late Models. Late Model prelims are on opening night with the feature on Saturday.
Lincoln Speedway, Abbottstown, Pa. (Sept. 7): Superior Homes Night is highlighted by the Limited Late Models topping a four-division program; no purse information was publicized.
Winchester (Va.) Speedway (Sept. 7): The Curt Hershey Memorial pays $3,000-to-win for the Super Late Models with Crate Late Models among three undercard divisions.
Thunder Mountain Speedway, Corbin, Ky. (Sept. 7): Crate Late Models chase a $2,000-to-win purse with powder puff events also on the card.
