PORT ROYAL, Pa. (June 7) — Jason Covert had a shot at his best finish at Port Royal Speedway in three years during Saturday’s Selinsgrove Ford Appalachian Mountain Speedweek opener — until the sixth lap.

Running third in the early stages of the 35-lap $5,000-to-win feature, the 55-year-old of York Haven, Pa., “felt something shake going down the backstretch and I didn’t know what it was.”

Moments later, the former Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series winner simultaneously felt and heard a pop as he lost the handling of his No. 43, which shot up the banking and into the turn-three fence.

• 2025 Appalachian Speedweek Points Tracker: See The Standings Here
• Why Appalachian Speedweek Fits Gregg Satterlee Like A Glove
• Engine Woes Quickly End Kyle Hardy's Appalachian Mountain Speedweek
• Trever Feathers Making App. Speedweek Title Run As Tyler Emory's Sub

“I thought the left-rear had mud in it. When I entered three, I entered higher that time than what I’d been entering just to make sure if something was wrong,” said Covert, who hadn’t ran that well at Port Royal since his last win there September 2022. “(The right-front tire) popped and I didn’t have far to go. Plugged the wall, and it is what it is.”

Thankfully Covert’s incident, which resembled Tyler Emory’s brutal head-on crash entering turn three in last season's AMS event at Port Royal, didn’t cause any physical harm. Covert recalls Emory’s nasty wreck, the mishap that ultimately forced the 2023 AMS champion to seek out lower-back stem cell surgery earlier this year.

“He entered the bottom,” Covert recalled, which is why the Pennsylvania veteran kept his Rocket Chassis in the middle of the racetrack in case a failure happened.

While the heads-up driving from Covert perhaps spared him from injury, his speedy car wasn’t unscathed. Covert says “I’m sure” the chassis needs to be shipped back to Shinnston, W.Va.’s Rocket Chassis for repairs, which isn’t a quick trip for the part-time racer who can’t prioritize racing like he once did.

The wreck won’t put Covert out of commission for the week like fellow Mid-Atlantic racer Kyle Hardy, but it does handicap him, leaving team owner Barry Klinedinst with one race machine for the time being — a backup car that Covert has raced once this year.

“It has stuff bent that shouldn’t be bent. I don’t know, it’s frustrating because that’s the fifth race on it,” Covert said. "It’s won a race already (last October at Pennsylvania’s Bedford Speedway). We were running another car, trying to get a good sidekick car, you know what I mean? But it’s just one of the deals. A bad deal for us.”

The miniseries makes up half of Covert’s planned races for 2025. The PhiVTech Solutions vice president of projects and business development has substantial work duties at the Gilbertsville, Pa.-based telecommunications company that require the lion’s share of his time and energy.

Despite a reduced racing schedule, Covert remains competitive. On Saturday, he qualified third overall and “figured we were going to get better in the feature once we got on harder tires.”

“Made a bunch of changes after that little (timed dash), and felt like we were decent,” Covert said. “Not saying we were going to beat (eventual winner) Gregg (Satterlee) and everybody, but we were going to compete for the win. Then had another tire failure.”

Covert, whose four miniseries victories are tied for fourth all-time with Tim McCreadie and Josh Richards, is trying to keep one of the longest streaks alive this year across Super Late Model racing.

He’s gone 20 consecutive seasons with at least one Super Late Model feature victory, a span in which he’s racked up exactly 100 wins from 2005-24. One of those wins has come on the second iteration of Appalachian Mountain Speedweek — the 2023 opener at Clinton County Speedway in Mill Hall, Pa.

Tuesday’s miniseries event at Path Valley Speedway Park in Spring Run, Pa., is too meaningful for Covert to miss. The quarter-mile virtually raised him as a young racer who started his racing career there in 1987.

He won the Appalachian Mountain Speedweek event at the Pennsylvania hidden gem in 2016 in a thrilling battle over Satterlee. Covert hasn’t been to Path Valley's victory lane since. 

“Committing to anything with work and life, with things that are changing — things change all the time — it just gets to the point where it’s a lot of work, plus everything else,” Covert said. “We’ll do what we can. We plan on running it."