BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. — Last time around, we looked at a few dirt track giants who have impressed us over the years, but there are many more to recall. Two of the best were the Johnson brothers, Alan and Danny, who between them have notched nearly 1,200 feature wins around the Northeast.
Alan started in 1974 at age 16 and like Danny, who hit the speedways at 18, is still active. Both were mentored by their father, Milt, a winning racer in his own right and proprietor of the B and M Speed Shop, engine builders to the stars for many years.
Smoother and less aggressive than his younger brother, Alan has 563 wins so far, including a pair of triumphs in the big block race at Super DIRT Week on the Syracuse mile. With five Super DIRTcar Series titles, Alan has one more than Danny.
Danny has long been known for being able to “carry” a car with a bad setup or the wrong stagger, adapting his line to whatever his mount was capable of and going to the front. He has some 607 wins and scored a rare “Syracuse double” in 1997, sweeping both the big and small block finales at Super DIRT Week.
Whether driving for high dollar owners and sponsors or patching together their own efforts to keep going, both Johnsons have been key factors in the sport for what seems like forever.
Another driver out of the same mold as Danny Johnson was C.D. Coville, probably the most aggressive racer we’ve had the pleasure of observing over the decades. Sometimes he got himself in trouble, but, more often than not, his bold moves paid off with a top finish.
Coville’s 150 wins came in a career shortened by health problems that prompted his doctors to tell him to retire or face dire consequences should he crash again. He retired after just 18 seasons, two of which he sat out on doctor’s orders. But big block or small block, U.S. or Canada, if Coville was in the field excitement was on the menu. He and Jack Johnson were fierce rivals on the track but friendly off, a concept some of today’s racers have missed.
Clarence’s initials were modified by detractors to Crash and Destroy after some spectacular crashes but even those detractors had to admit he could get from the high handicap starting positions to the front as well as anybody. Personally, we always thought Coville was in the wrong place and that he would have been a superstar in USAC sprints.
Moving to the current era, three names stand out: Matt Sheppard, Mat Williamson and Stewart Friesen.
Sheppard is a rare owner/driver in an era where most top drivers wheel cars fielded by wealthy owners. He’s notched 10 Super DIRTcar Series championships while recording over 500 wins in weekly and tour events. Matt has been equally successful on the rival Short Track Super Series, with 59 wins and a handful of championships, and has an impressive career win rate of roughly 25 percent.
Matt, who has an engineering degree, has won everywhere from the bullrings to the Syracuse Mile and is a true professional, quietly going about his business fielding well-prepared cars and then driving them to the best finish they are capable of on a given night. Like Hearn, he seldom crashes and if he races long enough will also have superior stats when he retires.
Williamson has progressed from being “the next big thing” to join Sheppard and Friesen atop the modified world. Detractors attribute his success to his family being part of the dominant Bicknell chassis and parts manufacturing empire, but he drives a handful of different cars for different owners between weekly, DIRTcar Series and STSS shows and his superior talent shows in every one of them.
With some 264 wins already and a trio of Super DIRTcar Series championships to his credit, Williamson seems set to be a kingpin for many seasons to come. He is also a top dog in the 358 series with three straight wins at Super DIRT Week and is coming off a 2025 campaign that saw him sweep both the big and small block finales at SDW.
NASCAR fans know Friesen as a good truck racer but fans in the Northeast know him as an outstanding dirt modified shoe with well over 400 wins despite running a limited schedule around his NASCAR dates in recent years.
Stewart won his sixth Super DIRT Week finale between Syracuse and Oswego in 2025 and has also notched some 54 wins on the STSS tour over the years. One of his most notable wins came in his native Canada, at the Oshweken Speedway, where he wheeled wife Jessica’s sprint car to a stunning win over Donny Schatz in a WoO feature.
Friesen is fast and aggressive everywhere but to truly appreciate his talent, one needs to watch him at the Fonda Speedway, where he uses all three grooves to get from the back to the front on the odd-shaped oval on the weeks he has no Saturday truck race.
Like Coville, he passes cars wherever he catches them, using whatever line is open and he’s worth the price of admission to watch. A frightening crash in Canada last summer left him with severe injuries but hard work and an iron will has Stewart back in superb form and winning again.
We’ll finish our marathon look at the past next time.