DirtonDirt.com exclusive
10th anniversary: Writers pick favorite stories
DirtonDirt.com reporters remember their favorite stories they’ve written. Included are links to the stories and comments about what made the stories so special (edited for clarity and length; 10th anniversary coverage):
Alli Collis, staff writer
After reset, Landers still climbing on uphill battle: This story stands out for a couple of different reasons. First, this was the first full story I ever wrote for DirtonDirt.com. I was still fresh from college and wasn't even a full-time staffer when it was published. I had assisted with a few interviews before talking to Landers, and more than once a driver assumed I just wanted to have my picture taken with them (and were then embarassed when they found out who I was). Landers was professional and gave a good interview, which I appreciated. I remember being so excited to see my byline on a DoD story for the first time. Second, the "battle" this story refers to is Landers's depature from Clint Bowyer Racing. Little did he or anyone else know that his racing career would be thrown for a loop again in 2016 when a torn carotid artery threatened to sideline him for good.
Exams done, teen takes Big E veterans to school: Attending weekly shows at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., fairly regulary, I have been able to see Josh Rice's career unfold. I watched him come up in the modified ranks and even nicknamed him "Baby Rice" as my own way of separating him from his dad Jerry and brother James (sorry, Josh). I saw Rice win his first Late Model race and remember telling just about anyone who would listen how good he was going to be. He proved me right at Eldora back in 2015, posting a sixth-place finish in his first-ever Dream start. This story actually refers to his third-place finish in one of the Eldora preliminary features. Just 16 years old at the time, Rice had taken his finals early so he could make it to the Big E on time. Rice has been racing modifieds again here recently, but I have no doubt he'll be back in a Late Model one day. He's proven he has the talent for it.
Family tugging at heart, Linville climbs out of car: As journalists, we are supposed to be unbiased. In the Dirt Late Model world, that means we don't have favorite drivers. But it's hard for me not to root for my fellow central Kentucky natives, Dustin Linville being one of those guys. I've watched Linville raced from the time he first got started in the modified division, and hated to hear that he would be stepping away from the sport. However, as an injury-prone guy with a wife and two young daughters at home, I understood his reasons for wanting to call it quits. "My heart just let me know that I'm not meant to be in a race car anymore," Linville said. "My family needs me and I need them.” But I know I'm not alone in saying we miss seeing the No. D8 out on the track.
Spring 50 winner fights back tears at Florence: A somewhat quiet and reserved guy, Jason Jameson has always been a bit of a tough interview for me when it comes to really getting him talking. But Jameson's emotions were on full display after he won this year's Spring 50, fighting back tears as he dedicated the win to his late friend and fellow racer Terry Lanigan. Jameson spoke highly of Lanigan in a postrace interview saying, "We're out here, he's underneath my car. He believed in me.” It was a special night, a side of Jameson we don't often see and a very touching tribute to Lanigan.
A decade later, Casebolt on roll heading to Dream: When we were asked to pick five of our favorite stories, this one instantly came to mind. This interview with Steve Casebolt is one of my favorites. Asking him to reflect on his 2007 Dream victory, Casebolt took me through each stage of the race, painting a picture that allowed me to see it unfold. I wasn't at that Dream, but I now wish I would have been. It was fun to hear him talk about holding off Scott Bloomquist and how much winning that race had changed his racing career. “I can look back on it and if I never win another race, I can say I won that one and that's pretty special really," he said. It was a great interview that made for a great story.
Robert Holman, weekend editor
Data-crunching focus lifts Buckingham team: Arguably one of the most well-spoken drivers in the pit area, Shanon Buckingham was a delight to interview. And his account of how his race team has risen to that of a regional contender was compelling. Buckingham readily admits that data is out there for whoever is willing to buy it, but insists that to a certain point, that may not be the best way to acquire the long-term results drivers seek. As both a journalist and the owner of an underfunded weekly race team, it was refreshing to hear a driver suggest what I’ve always believed to be true: the information highway isn’t necessarily a two-way street. Buckingham’s willingness to put in the work testing as often as possible — and his willingness to talk about it — gives a little more insight on what it takes to stay competitive.
Concussion's aftereffects keep Stovall out of seat: A lot of times you really don’t know what to expect when you pick up the phone to initiate an interview. When I called Jesse Stovall a day after he withdrew from Lucas Oil Midwest LateModel Racing Association competition at Junction Motor Speedway in McCool Junction, Neb., because of a concussion he received three weeks earlier, I didn’t know what to expect. It was the first time I’d ever spoken with Stovall. Talking to a driver with an injury is never easy. It’s even more difficult when the injury keeps the driver out of action for any great length. Stovall was gracious, however, and spoke at length about his injury and the unknowns that are associated with concussions. In a time when all professional sports are making a concerted effort to improve safety and we’re learning more and more about the long-term effects of concussions, Stovall’s story was on point.
Debuting Bailes helps team find Wright track: There are a number of people in our sport who you can count on to answer questions without feeling the need to get lost in political correctness. Scott Bloomquist and C.J. Rayburn are just two of the many. Another is Barry Wright. The legendary chassis builder’s thoughts are measured, but he doesn’t hesitate to tell you the truth. While this story about the four-race arrangement between Wright and South Carolina driver Ross Bailes may seem run of the mill on the surface, it was anything but. And it had to be written ASAP. I spoke with Bailes and Wright at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gaps, Tenn. It was the first race the Barry Wright Race Cars house car team attended following its amicable split with Jonathan Davenport. Because the Bulls Gap race was on a Thursday night, the story was timely, fitting nicely into the weekend news cycle. I was just fortunate enough to get to write it.
The cost of a tire rule: Just the fourth blog I penned, this is arguably one of the most enjoyable pieces that I’ve written in the seven years I’ve been a scribe at DirtonDirt. I suppose that’s the way it is when you are emotionally invested in a subject. As a car owner, I’m definitely invested. And after a hot day breaking down tires and mounting new ones just so we could compete at a different track, I was physically invested as well. My thoughts as I went through the process resulted in the blog, which in tern garnered as much feedback as any blog I’ve written to date. Not only did my dilemma get me thinking about tire rules as a whole, but it struck a cord with readers as well, which is alway cool to see.
English's Duck River run eases pain of near-miss: Tanner English was obviously disappointed when he lost the 2016 Deep Fried 75 at Duck River Raceway Park to hall-of-famer Billy Moyer, but he didn’t let on during his postrace interview. Fast forward five months as English returned to Duck River for a Lucas Oil sanctioned race and the young Benton, Ky., driver was more then willing to talk about his heartbreak. Fittingly, he ran third behind Don O’Neal and Scott Bloomquist in the Lucas Oil race that day and unlike the Deep Fried 75, English was pretty pleased. It was neat being able to track the emotional spectrum that English experienced, especially given he’d had a few months to reflect on it and was still pretty bummed. Stories like this one seem to write themselves and seem as easy to read as they are to write.
Kevin Kovac, senior writer
Dream Retrospective: Frye-Bloomquist clash: For a feature leading into this year’s Dream at Eldora Speedway, it was an easy call to look back on the famed Bill Frye-Scott Bloomquist incident that happened in the $100,000-to-win event exactly 20 years earlier. I decided to use the oral history format to let the day’s participants and witnesses tell the story in their own words, and man, that was the right move. The remembrances I collected from more than a dozen attendees of the ’97 Dream provided me material to produce a piece that provided me more feedback from readers than maybe anything I had ever written. The passage of time allowed everyone I interviewed to open up — especially Frye, who has always been a colorful subject and didn’t disappoint with his candid comments — and in the process I learned plenty of things I didn’t know about that wild night and Dirt Late Model history in general.
‘Caretakers’ guide Eldora as Earl’s Dream rolls on: The 2015 Dream was the first crown jewel event at Eldora since the passing 2-and-a-half months earlier of Earl Baltes, the track’s legendary founder and promoter. So I called Larry Boos and Roger Slack — director of operations and promoter and general manager, respectively — to ask them how different it would be to not have ‘ol Earl watching over the races from up in the tower. They both offered thoughts on Baltes that perfectly summed up the essence of the man and how they think every day about continuing his legacy. There were so many neat anecdotes from the two Eldora officials — like Slack recalling how he carried Earl’s wife, Berniece, from the hotel bar to her room during a promoters’ workshop and Boos marveling at how fans of all ages revere the statues of Earl and Berniece that stand at Eldora’s entrance — that the story virtually wrote itself.
Column: Death of ‘Huey’ touches many in racing: I never met Huey Wilcoxson, the Dirt Late Model crew chief for multiple top driver and founder of the MasterSbilt by Huey shop. But after conducting interviews with his stepson, Billy Vacek, and some of the racers closest to him in the wake of his sudden passing from a heart attack while driving home from a race at Maryland’s Potomac Speedway in April 2014, I felt like I knew him well. The love and admiration everyone I spoke with had for Wilcoxon made me keenly aware that he was a special person in the sport, and I hope my column that resulted got that idea across to the Dirt Late Model world.
Column: Recalling feats of the Virginia Leadfoot: With veteran Dirt Late Model driver Rodney Franklin battling terminal cancer, then Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway promoter Ernie Davis and his daughter, general manager Keya Davis, organized a tribute night in April 2015 for the former standout. Franklin’s health wasn’t well enough for him to attend — in fact, he died just three days later — but his presence was still felt all around the half-mile oval. I attended the event and recorded heartfelt remembrances of Franklin with numerous attendees, including his longtime rival Gary Stuhler, who recalled his fierce battles with Franklin that lit up Hagerstown and other area tracks throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Column: Dream loss still weighing on Bloomquist: I have plenty of Scott Bloomquist-focused stories that stand out in my mind — after all, it’s easy to write compelling stuff on him because he always outspoken and produces good copy — but the one I remember most is the column I did on him the week of the 2015 World 100. That’s largely because of the circumstances of my interview with him to obtain the material for the piece. After Bloomquist won the Pittsburgher 100 in late August and I stopped at his trailer looking for him, his crewman, Cody Mallory, went up in the hauler and relayed that I was waiting outside. Bloomquist then invited me inside his toterhome to talk — an occurrence I realized is rare when his then 9-year-old daughter quipped to me, “He doesn’t let anybody come in here.” Bloomquist proceeded to spend a good 20 minutes answering my questions and, most notably, talking candidly about his weight DQ after crossing the finish line first in June’s Dream and asserting that he hadn’t yet given up on contesting the ruling — info that provided me great material for a World 100 preview.
Honorable mention:
Column: Bland looks back with bittersweetness: Former Xtreme DirtCar Series director Doug Bland talks about his fleeting stint in the Dirt Late Model spotlight a decade after thoroughly shaking up the division’s landscape.
Column: Driggers embraces role as face of UMP: A story that helps personalize UMP DIRTcar director Sam Driggers, who is seen in so many pit areas and is the lasting connection to UMP founder Bob Memmer.
High-flying Bloomquist: This blog actually had nothing to do with racing competition or news, but, judging by the reaction it received, writing about Scott Bloomquist skydiving before a 2016 Speedweeks race at Volusia Speedway Park intrigued quite a few people.
Column: Racing world according to Stuckey: Black Diamond Race Cars builder Ronnie Stuckey was such a great interview, I altered the usual format of my column and let him tell his story in his own words.
Column: Elder Pierce marvels at son’s success: One of my favorite Dirt Late Model personalities to interview is Bob Pierce, who never fails to describe a race or analyze an issue in a colorful, interesting manner. In this column I wrote after the 2015 season, he put his son Bobby’s rise in perfect perspective.
Column: After onslaught, awakened Rocket refires: Another of my favorite interview subjects, Rocket Chassis’s Mark Richards provided me a mountain of material about how Kevin Rumley changed the sport in 2015 and spurred him to go to work on creating the car now known as the XR1 Rocket.
Column: Budda, ‘fan of little man,’ has big heart: A fun profile of Illinois’s Larry Redenius — the Bert transmission dealer-rebuilder (among other roles) better known as Budda — that details his racing background.
Todd Turner, managing editor
Retired California dirt racer facing grim future: The story of a driver who’s facing early onset Alzheimer’s in part because of concussions suffered while racing is equal parts heartbreaking and eye-opening. Written ahead of a season that was one of the most devastating in Dirt Late Model racing for injuries and deaths, John Lowery’s cautionary tale takes us through the highs and lows of a California oil-field worker who enjoyed the thrill’s of high-profile dirt racing and faced the doom of forced retirement from the sport. The likable Lowery’s unvarnished honesty provides insight to his journey and his final laps in a race car. “I realized, ‘This is the last time I’m going to get to race.’ ” Lowrey recalled. “And I kind of pushed the pedal a little bit harder like, ‘I don’t want to get out of this car.’ ” The story was later published in the The Bakersfield Californian.
Ex-SUPR champ facing his toughest foe in ALS: Rusty Cummings was one of those friendly souls people are drawn to, and I’d met him years ago as one of my favorites on the Louisiana-based SUPR series. That made it all the harder to write about his gripping battle with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, as this rock of a man withered over several months. That the former SUPR champion’s son Kyle followed his father’s tire tracks gave the story more emotional heft, and the first of several segments of the story recounts the final time Rusty saw his son win. Kyle wept behind the wheel after a 2011 victory just a few months before his father’s eventual death. "I had to stay in the car a little while longer with my helmet on,” Kyle said, “Because, I mean, it means so much more now to me now for him to be there, and to watch me win.”
Racers embrace family’s long wait for liver donor: The I-didn't-see-it-coming twist to the story about young Tyler Barker and his race-loving parents is that the young boy was waiting 18 months for a liver transplant — and that wait ended literally hours before the story was to be published. David and Trish Barker were fixtures on the western Missouri racing scene for years, but racing took a back seat when the under-sized Tyler was diagnosed with a rare liver disorder. But instead of parking his race car, David and Trish decided to keep racing and encourage organ donation with prominent decals on either side of the team’s No. 88 car. The story got an 11th-hour happy ending — and rewrite — with Tyler’s transplant, and fellow racers cheered on the success via Trish’s heartfelt online journal. “They know that even though they don't know what to expect,” said friend Tracie Bradder, the wife of driver Shad Badder, “their family, friends and the racing community will be right there.”
California youngsters still buddies despite tangle: The beauty of Dirt Late Model racing is there are literally hundreds of untold stories ignored by a track's local media outlets. So when you get a tip about a worthy story — in this case, a California racer who caught a ride to Perris Auto Raceway with a fellow driver, then wrecked the fellow driver to win on the last lap — it’s a ripe story-telling material you get to tell first. Clay Daly felt terrible when he wrecked Andy Obertello, costing him his first Late Model victory in 2010, and both drivers were forced to deal with the emotions of winning and losing on what Obertello described was an “awkward” beginning to the seven-hour drive home with Daly. “It's a tough way to win,” said Ron Obertello, the runner-up's father, “and a tough way to lose.”
$100,000 Dream special for crew chief, brothers: Racing journalists often say we don’t root for favorite drivers — we root for favorite interviews and stories. So when Dale McDowell crossed the line first in his dramatic Dream rally in 2014, I knew it was the perfect time for a quick exploration of the long-time relationship between Dale and his team’s crew chief, brother Shane. The best part for a reporter whose long known the racing brothers is that, on the night of celebrating a $100,000 victory, they didn’t sugar-coat the struggles they’ve had as siblings and fellow racers while carving out lives together and apart. “It’s tough when you’re brothers,” Shane said in the Eldora Speedway pits that evening. “But man, there’s nothing that makes it better than when you are brothers.”
Honorable mention:
Mary Jane’s Last Dance gives Sullivan $5,000: Several days of writing about Arkansas driver Sullivan’s smoking car dubbed “Mary Jane” was a highlight of that year’s Summernationals.
Mourning racer honors late friend with first win: Paying tribute to his late friend and fellow racer the day after his death, Wisconsin’s T.J. Adams raced to his first victory.
Oregon substitute enjoys 'fairy tale' win from tail: Oregon driver Jon DeBenedetti went from mowing the lawn to one of the most satisfying victories of his career.
Cancer doesn’t slow down Illinois racer: The inspirational story of late Illinois driver Hershel Roberts, whose team continues to inspire.
