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Pokrant and Five Flags: A Match Made on Asphalt

Jim Pokrant remembers the first night he came to Five Flags Speedway.

One of his father’s close friends brought the 9-year-old boy out to the racetrack one Friday night.

Little James Pokrant sat in the grandstands, not saying a word the whole evening. He was awestruck by the power of the cars, the non-stop excitement of the action.

He was hooked immediately. Pokrant would do almost anything he could to collect enough money so that he was able to return each and every race night.

“I used to pick up aluminum cans and use those to pay for my pit passes,� he said. “My mom dropped me off, she’d come back at 1 or 2 in morning and pick me up. She knew it was a place to keep me out of trouble.�

These days, Pokrant finds trouble at Five Flags from time to time, but that’s just a part of the job description as a driver.

Pokrant drives the No. 07 Sportsman, one of the most competitive classes at Five Flags, that has several tributes to the armed forces on it.

“Without the military, we’d have no America,� Pokrant said. “I take that to heart.�

Pokrant, who has driven in the Sportsman division since the 2004 Snowball Derby, currently leads the Sportsman points standings with to consistency in three races. His margin isn’t great though.

Pokrant boasts 151 points, just six ahead of Marty White.  Tina Davidson’s 135 points puts her third, Brannon Fowler sits fourth with 127 and Chris Nielsen’s 123 rounds out the top five.

“This is the closest points have been in a while,� Pokrant said. “Brannon Fowler is a heckuva competitor. Marty’s come a long way. He’s tough. And I’ve raced Tina door-to-door before and she beat me, so I know she’s a competitor.

“Everybody has a shot at winning on a given night. The cars are fun to drive. It’s a working man’s class that can afford racing, but can’t quite move up to Super Stocks or Modifieds.�

Pokrant knows. He raced Super Stocks from 1999 to 2003 at Five Flags.

After racing on dirt for a few years, Pokrant made the switch to asphalt in 1997. He bought his first car, an old Charger, from Jack Rodrigues — the father of Bombers driver Courtney Rodrigues.

Pokrant won his very first heat race before the engine blew to pieces in the feature. His crowning achievement came in 1998 when he won the Rattler title for the Pure Stock division — similar to today’s Sportsman—at South Alabama Speedway in Opp, Ala.

Pokrant made a white-lap pass to get to Victory Lane.

“We brought a knife to a gun fight,� he said. “It wasn’t horsepower that won that race. It was getting through turns. We stayed outta trouble and picked our battles. We led one lap, but it the most important one.

“It was prestigious to me, for my first win to be at the Rattler.�

As prestigious as the Rattler win was for Pokrant, nothing would mean more to him as a win at the Snowball Derby at a place he cherishes so deeply.

“You start thinking about the history of the track,� he said. “You think of the prestige and it gives you goose bumps. There’s a giddy feeling in your stomach. It stays with me until they shows us one (lap) to go. I get it all out of my system and I focus. Taking the checkered flag on that racetrack means the world to me. It’s awesome.�

 

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