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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 2011)
community september13 9 2011 Chasing a Championship Vernonia’s Doug Davenport is Having a Winning Season On The Dirt Track By Scott Laird Doug Davenport, from Verno- nia, is having a great year on the dirt track. Racing in his Open Wheel, Modified Stock Car, Davenport, who drives truck for Mike Pihl Logging at his day job, is tearing up the local Dirt Track circuit this season on the week- ends. Davenport, in his number 8 car, is currently the points leader at River City Speedway in St. Helens, has won a few races at Sunset Speedway in Banks and has also been competing in North- west National events this year. Recently at two Northwest Modified Nationals, Davenport finished second at Gray’s Harbor Raceway in Elma, WA.; at Cottage Grove Speedway Davenport finished sixth. “These are the fastest guys in the five western states and western Canada and the races draw about sixty or seventy cars,” explains Davenport. The Open Wheel Modified class is most often the featured event at small local dirt tracks. The races are fast paced and exciting—with cars racing a very close quarters, at high speeds. “I think everybody should go and check it out at least once, ” says Davenport. “ You put a bunch of guys out on a track at three inches apart and it gets pretty intense. And most of the time we’re sideways or up on three wheels. It’s pretty easy to get hooked on it.” The vehicle that Dav- enport races is basically a car with no fenders—it is almost fully fabricated with the front end of the frame coming from a stock car like a Chevelle or a Monte Carlo; every- thing else is fabricated for motor sports use only. The vehicles weigh about 2500 pounds with 650 horse power. “It weighs what your normal Honda car would but has five times the horse pow- er,” explains Davenport. Davenport races on dirt tracks only—the track at River City and at the Banks Speedway are a quarter mile and are about 50 feet wide with speeds on these smaller, tighter, tracks (racers call them Bull Rings) reaching about sixty- five miles per hour. On the larger, half- mile tracks, speeds can reach up to 150 MPH. In addition to racing at Gray’s Harbor and Cottage Grove, Daven- port has raced in Bakersfield, CA and Reno, NV. “We go all over, wherever the money is, and we race close to home for the local shows,” says Davenport. He is planning on attending the “Dual in the Desert” at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in November where he finished 40 th last year out of 300 cars. “These are the fastest guys in our sport nationwide; everybody is either the fastest driver from their local track or some kind of a regional champion, they’re the best at what we do,” says Davenport. “I learned a ton last year—what I was doing wrong and where I was doing it wrong and came back and spent the next few months do- ing research and studying.” Keeping up with new technol- ogy and equipment is a challenge in auto racing, as Davenport learned last year. He spent time and money updating his vehicle and says it has a made a big difference in his performance this year. “I have fourteen starts and have eight wins, two second place finishes, finished fourth once, sixth once.” He expects to have a serious shot at placing high in Las Vegas in November. “We have all the pieces in place this year,” he says. Davenport’s good friend Fletch- er Tofflmire works as his crew. “We think a lot alike, work really well togeth- er and we win a lot of races together,” says Davenport about his partnership with Tofflmire. He says his step sons, Tyler and Trevor, also help a lot in the shop and at the track. A Vernonia native, Davenport grew up around racing and started out racing motorcycles as a kid. He won four amateur moto- cross championships before getting injured. He worked on stock cars for other people for several years before deciding he wanted to race himself and has been steadily improving over the last few years. Davenport does all his own work on his vehicle, fab- ricating his own parts. He also supplements his racing pro- gram by doing work on vehi- cles for other drivers. Davenport has contin- ued to race this season at his home track in St. Helens after winning the first race of the season. “Since I started out with the points lead I went ahead and stayed over there and am racing for Champion- ship points,” says Davenport. “I need to have a championship—I won four cham- pionships racing bikes and I’ve been racing cars now for sixteen years and I haven’t won a championship yet. I’ve won lots of races all over the west, but I don’t really have anything to show for it. I would really like to win a champi- onship—have some kind of accomplish- ment to show for what we’ve done.” Davenport’s last race of the sea- son at River City Speedway will be Sep- tember 17 th . CAT Builds Energy Efficient Home in Vernonia At an open house in Vernonia on Au- gust 31, 2011, Community Action Team, Inc. debuted one of their latest building projects: A home built and equipped with some of the latest energy efficient technologies. The idea to build such a home was born at a company retreat with a two year goal set to accomplish the task. This year they got the opportunity when building a home for the Mark and Deanna Brown family who agreed to let Community Action Team ex- periment with the idea. Community Action Team specializes in self-help, affordable housing and typically works with USDA loans that adjust interest rates based on the income of the homeowners. Casey Mitchell with Community Action Team (CAT) thanked the Brown family for trusting CAT to do a bit of experimenting with the home. He also thanked the Mennonites who have been assisting Vernonia rebuild since the December 03, 2007 flood. He said, “Without their labor, we couldn’t have gotten here. A lot of the gear in the home is pretty expensive stuff and by sup- plementing with volunteer labor we were able to buy that equipment and still make it affordable.” Earth Advantage Institute, a not-for- profit organization based out of Portland, Or- egon that works with the building industry to implement sustainable building practices, pro- vided guidance to CAT to ensure the measures to build the home and equipment used within were cost effective for the homeowner. They also tested the indoor air quality of the home. continued on page 18 The Brown family with members of CAT in front of their new home. We have ice cream! s Owned and Operated by Don & Kim Wallace Open for breakfast, lunch & dinner ce Mariolino’s Pizza & Grill ath Health Se rv al P r i tu Na By Jill Hult Dr. Carol McIntyre Naturopathic & Chinese Medicine 503.481.4096 cccmnd@yahoo.com naturalpathhealthservices.com Serving Vernonia since 1970 721 Madison Avenue, Vernonia (503) 429-5018 786 Bridge Street Vernonia, OR, 97064
