DirtonDirt Dispatches
Dispatches: Hess, Anvelink hit milestones
Nick Anvelink takes the checkers at Shawano. (Chad Marquardt)
Among the latest notes and quotes from around Dirt Late Model racing from Aug. 21-24 (look for Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Rumble by the River coverage from Port Royal, Pa., elsewhere). Also find a listing of live-streaming video from specials around the country:
Milestone victories
Dave Hess Jr. of Waterford, Pa., and Nick Anvelink of Bonduel, Wis., scored milestone victories with special event triumphs during the weekend.
The 41-year-old Hess, winning Friday's $5,000 Super Late Model feature at Tri-City Raceway Park in Franklin, Pa., collected his 400th career dirt racing feature victory. Hess, a longtime standout in Late Model and modified competition, overtook Jared Miley on an early restart and raced to victory, holding off teenager Brock Pinkerous in winning his first Tri-City Super Late Model feature. (Pinkerous, too, had a milestone victory of sorts on the weekend, notching his first-ever Super Late Model triumph the following night at Stateline Speedway in Busti, N.Y.).
Anvelink, 46, a seven-time Wabam Dirt Kings Tour champion, won Saturday’s series event at his home track of Shawano Speedway, giving him his 93rd career victory at the track, one more than National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame Pete Parker of Kaukauna, Wis. Anvelink earned $2,000 for his series-leading 30th victory.
“Overall I’d say it’s a pretty cool deal,” Anvelink told reporter Joe Verdegan. “I’m sure someday, someone will break my record. Pete is in the Hall of Fame for a reason. He had a great career, and I was lucky enough to race against him for ten years.”
At Tri-City, Hess continued another standout season with his fifth special-event victory of 2025.
“Man, this is awesome,” Hess said. “We’ve won here before in other classes, and we finished second to the (World of) Outlaws one time, but we’ve been chasing a Super Late win here for a while. To finally get it done — and have it be No. 400 — it really means a lot. The track was great tonight, really racy, and it’s just a great feeling to finally check this one off the list.” — Mike Ackelson, track and staff reports
Shirley’s nemesis
Bobby Pierce is on a heater with the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series. No one knows that more than Brian Shirley.
To run his tour winning streak to three with a $12,000 victory in Friday night’s 40-lap Sooner State Showdown preliminary at Arrowhead Speedway in Colcord, Okla., Oakwood, Ill.’s Pierce passed Chatham, Ill.’s Shirley for the lead on lap 33. Shirley went on to finish second to Pierce for the second straight WoO event.
What’s more, Shirley placed third in the first race of Pierce’s current streak — Aug. 14's 40-lapper at Spoon River Speedway in Banner, Ill. — after losing the lead to the 28-year-old sensation on lap 26. Pierce’s strength is creating some frustration for Shirley, whose runner-up finish to Pierce in Aug. 16’s Hawkeye 100 finale at Maquoketa (Iowa) Speedway came by just inches after he made a final-turn run at Pierce.
What can the 44-year-old Shirley do to outrun Pierce? He’s trying to find the secret to ultimate success with his Bob Cullen-owned team.
“It’s not from lack of trying, lack of effort,” said Shirley, whose lone WoO triumph this season is his $88,500 score in July 26’s Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway. “We just got to figure out what this 32 … man, he’s just a little bit better and it shows as the race goes on — we get freer, he gets a little tighter.
“I don’t know that he’s, like, getting faster than everybody, he just doesn’t slow up like we do. So we got to go and do some things and figure out how to get better, but at least we’re there.”
Three consecutive podium finishes is indeed good news for Shirley, who remains seventh in the WoO standings but is now within 48 points of fifth-place Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ill. But Pierce, as the No. 1-ranked driver in the country, is a difficult foe to conquer.
Pierce had to come from behind in Friday’s feature, starting fifth after finishing second to Erb in a heat race while Shirley led the field to the green flag from the pole position. He reached second on lap 20 and then ran down Shirley without the benefit of a caution flag to assume command for good on lap 33.
“We gotta get a little better in qualifying,” Pierce said, looking to make life easier on himself come feature time. “I mean, I say that, but I feel like, both laps (of qualifying), I tried something different, and if I would have pieced a lap together one corner in a certain spot and in the other corner, another spot, probably would have had a good qualifying lap.
“But, you know, just getting those heat race wins is sometimes tough. You know, me and Dennis had a heck of a battle, so hopefully, tomorrow (Saturday’s 60-lap, $20,000-to-win finale at Arrowhead) we’ll be a little better in the heat race. Obviously, you know, in the redraw, drew a five, way better than drawing fourth row, so, you know, we'll to see what we got tomorrow. Really looking forward to it.”
The Arrowhead oval, which is hosting the WoO circuit for the first time, certainly impressed Pierce.
“This Arrowhead Speedway is awesome,” said Pierce, who leads the WoO tour with 10 wins this season and has 28 victories overall. “You got to come check it out if you’ve never been here. The racetrack’s awesome, too. A lot of times you get nice facilities and the track sucks, but this track’s great on top of the facility.” — Staff and series reports
Arrowhead opener
With the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series making its debut at Arrowhead Speedway, series regulars didn’t miss an opportunity to get a sneak preview of the Colcord, Okla., track on Thursday.
The three-race Sooner State Showdown opened with Comp Cams Super Dirt Series action with a heavy WoO influence as nine of the top 10 finishers, including winner Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, W.Va., were regulars on the national tour. Hoffman turned back multiple challenges from Bobby Pierce over the final 15 laps for the $10,000 victory that comes ahead of Friday’s $12,000-to-win and Saturday’s $20,000-to-win races with the World of Outlaws.
"I wish this was an Outlaw race, but the first Comp Cams race to win is really cool,” Hoffman said. “So (we’ve) got a lot of momentum going into the weekend, which is good, and I felt like he almost had to race tonight to figure this racetrack out a little bit and it paid off for us.”
Arrowhead on Friday is set to become just the fifth Oklahoma track to host the WoO tour, and first since a 2017 visit to the Salina Highbanks Speedway. If the weekend is completed successfully, Arrowhead will become the first track to host more than one WoO event.
Thursday’s top finishers gave the Willie and Elizabeth Gammill-owned third-mile oval a thumbs up.
Saying it’s "nice to come to a top-notch facility like this,” Hoffman said that track wasn’t as maneuverable in heat races, but performed well in the 40-lap feature. “Luckily at feature time it slowed down and (the fast groove) moved and it moved a bunch. The bottom was rolling there at the beginning and then it got back to the top and that's all you can ask for. We were dragging the infield there, running through the infield, and so it was really fun and it was technical. So they did a great job.”
Some low-running drivers did dip into the infield grass, and Pierce recognized that might not happen the rest of the weekend.
“Obviously we got to race in the infield, so they might need a couple more uke tires,” the runner-up said. “But I was going where we could go, trying to make a good race out of it.”
“If I wouldn't have jumped the cushion up there, we possibly could have held on to the win, but (I) was going for it. Congrats to Nick. He did a ran a good race and he was able to cut through the middle really well, probably one of the only cars out there that could do it that good. I was searching top, bottom, infield, whatever I could do, but just wasn't enough tonight.”
Hoffman was glad to start his weekend off right.
“To put this deal on a Thursday, it makes us want to come here and tie a whole week together instead of sitting around the house for another day,” he said. “It’s great to get on the racetrack and get some laps and use kind of a test session. So my guys did a great job, Dan and D-Train doing a great job, you know, as always.” — Series and staff reports
Laursen honored
Three-time Red Clay Classic Late Model winner Brent Laursen of Osceola, Wis., headlines Saturday’s inductees for the Class of 2025 of the Rice Lake Speedway Hall of Fame. Gina Kromrey will represent her late father at the ceremony.
Laursen, who died in 2010 at the age of 59 after battle with Hodgkin lymphoma that began in 1977, joins his late father and inaugural Hall of Famer Russ Laursen. The elder Laursen died 40 years to the day before his son from injuries suffered in a sprint car crash in Fairmont, Minn.
Brent Laursen, who captured Rice Lake’s Red Clay Classic in 1979, ’86 and ’89, was a 12-time Late Model winner at Rice Lake and two-time track champion. The 1973 Late Model Invitational winner at Rice Lake was also a three-time modified winner at the track. Overall the driver of the No. 02 car won more than 100 features among multiple divisions including street stocks, modifieds and sprint cars.
Born into a racing family, it was inevitable he too would race. Russ Laursen was among the finest dirt racers in the regional, and Brent was witness to it along with his brother Steve, another future Late Model standout.
Brent’s career began at Rice Lake in 1969, winning his first street stock feature in a 1957 Chevy. His career in racing was just taking off his father was killed, devastating the regional racing community.
Brent continued to pursue his own racing career, scoring his first Late Model victory in 1973 and winning 12 overall in the division at Rice Lake, the last in 2001.
Also a champion at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis., he was a three-time winner of the Elmer Cook Memorial, won Hibbing (Minn.) Raceway’s Labor Day Shootout and the Central Wisconsin State Fair race.
Diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 1977, radiation and chemotherapy arrested the disease, but other medial issues forced his retirement from racing in 2008.
He was an honor student in high school and an excellent chess player. and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Brent worked for 25 years as the village foreman for Osceola and also worked for a director of public works/zoning administrator starting in 2007 in Cumberland, Wis. — Ed Reichert
Streaming schedule
Among upcoming Dirt Late Model special and sanctioned events available via live streaming:
Thursday, Aug. 21
• Comp Cams Super Dirt Series at Arrowhead Speedway in Colcord, Okla. (ArrowVision Live)
Friday, Aug. 22
• World of Outlaws-Comp Cams Super Dirt Series at Arrowhead Speedway in Colcord, Okla. (DIRTVision)
• Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway (FloRacing)
• MARS Championship Series at Kankakee County Speedway in Kankakee, Ill. (FloRacing)
• I-96 Speedway DIRTcar Super Late Models in Lake Odessa, Mich. (FloRacing)
• Tri-City Raceway Park Super Late Models in Franklin, Pa. (The Cushion TV)
• Malvern Bank East-West Series at Marshalltown (Iowa) Speedway (FloRacing)
• Repairable Vehicles.com Tri-State Late Model Series at Fairmont (Minn.) Raceway (Racin’ Dirt)
• Ross Foundation Sooner-United Rebel Late Model Series at Salt City Speedway in Hutchinson, Kan. (Racin’ Dirt)
• Wabam Dirt Kings Tour at Plymouth (Wis.) Dirt Track (Watch FYE TV)
Saturday, Aug. 23
• Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway (FloRacing)
• World of Outlaws-Comp Cams Super Dirt Series at Arrowhead Speedway in Colcord, Okla. (DIRTVision)
• Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series at North Georgia Speedway in Chatsworth, Ga. (Hunt the Front TV)
• Southern All Star Dirt Racing Series at Lake Cumberland Speedway in Burnside, Ky. (Dirt Rich TV)
• MARS Championship Series at Red Hill Raceway in Sumner, Ill. (FloRacing)
• Malvern Bank East-West Series at Adams County Speedway in Corning, Iowa (Dirt Crown TV)
• American Crate All-Star Series presented by PPM at Lake Cumberland Speedway in Burnside, Ky. (Dirt Rich TV)
• Ross Foundation Sooner-United Rebel Late Model Series at Salt City Speedway in Hutchinson, Kan. (Racin’ Dirt)
• Elite Racing 602 Crate Late Model Series at Beckley (W.Va.) Motor Speedway (Dirt Rich TV)
