Kres VanDyke (15) and Nik Williams (32) battle for the lead in a July 2022 Late Model Stock race at Kingsport Speedway. The two have combined to win the last three track championships.
Kres VanDyke (15) and Nik Williams (32) battle for the lead in a July 2022 Late Model Stock race at Kingsport Speedway. The two have combined to win the last three track championships.
Late Model Sportsman is a term that harkens back to the “glory days” of Kingsport Speedway.
It was the name of NASCAR’s second highest division before it became an actual touring series with the Busch Series (now Xfinity Series) in 1982. Over the decade of the ’70s and first couple of years of the ’80s, LMS events were the most popular races at the 3/8-mile short track.
Drivers such as NASCAR Hall of Famer Jack Ingram, Harry Gant, Butch Lindley, Sam Ard, L.D. Ottinger and Jimmy Hensley battled with Tri-Cities stars like Gene Glover from Kingsport, John A. Utsman from Bluff City and Johnson City’s Brad Teague.
Fast forward to today and the name Late Model Sportsman is being revived for the featured class at the track nicknamed the “Concrete Jungle.” It’s because the Late Model Stock and Sportsman classes are being combined to create larger car counts and a goal of better competition.
“We’ve taken away the built shocks, where they have to run an all steel-body shock, non-adjustable,” Kingsport Speedway track manager Vern Deel said. “With the Harrington (GM) and Ford crate motors, we’ve wanted to give the guys with older motors a chance to get their cars off the jack stands and compete with them by taking some horsepower away from the high-dollar motors.”
The way they’re trying to achieve the goal of slowing down the crate cars and getting the Sportsman cars up to speed is through the carburetors. It allows the Late Model Stock drivers and teams to make a quick change to another carburetor if they’re racing at another track.
There aren’t changes to the chassis weight or anything required. The decision to combine the classes was made with the fans in mind.
“Who wants to go watch 7-8 Late Models (race)? We had to do something,” Deel said.
“People don’t get that they’re still running Division 1 and can still race for the Late Model national championship,” he said, referring to the NASCAR Advance Auto Weekly Racing Series and how the Kingsport racers still have a chance to compete in the national standings. Actually, the larger car counts from the combined class give a frequent winner a chance to score more points under NASCAR’s metrics.
Track champion Kres VanDyke, who won 12 of the 14 Late Model Stock races at Kingsport Speedway last season, won the Tennessee state championship. However, he didn’t rank among even the top 100 nationally due to the small number of Late Models competing on a weekly basis at Kingsport.
On the other hand, the Pure 4 class frequently had fields of 20 or more cars. Kingsport racers Brayden Powers and Kenny Absher finished third and fourth in the Southeast Region, Division 4 standings and in the top 30 nationally.
• Kingsport Speedway hosts its annual mall show Saturday, Feb. 18 at The Mall at Johnson City. The season opener is set for Saturday, March 25.
• There will soon be an announcement about the INEX Legends and Bandeloro cars coming for a doubleheader weekend at Kingsport. The cars will race both on the big track and the Kingsport Miniway go-kart track.
CLEETUS BACK AT BMS
YouTube star Cleetus McFarland and friends will be racing Ford Ranger pickup trucks on the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt surface in the inaugural Ranger Danger on Dirt event Saturday, April 22.
The program will also feature the Midwest Dirt Series Compacts All-Star Invitational race and the Demolition Drags, in which two cars race down the backstretch and anything goes. There will be an elimination bracket to determine the champion.
Gates open at 1 p.m. with a pit party through 4:30 p.m. Racing starts at 5 p.m.
Jeff Birchfield is a sports writer for the Johnson City Press with a lifelong passion for motorsports. The father of two attended ETSU and served in the Tennessee Army National Guard.
