With the Lucas Oil Late Model Series 2024 season concluded, a season that featured a crazy amount of driver changes including Hudson O’Neal leaving Rocket1 Racing and eventually finding a home at SSI Motorsports, there’s speculation that O’Neal and SSI Motorsports might change chassis from Longhorn to Rocket.
Ricky Thornton Jr. leads Dale McDowell, Tim McCreadie, Mike Marlar, Hudson O’Neal and Scott Crigler at The Topless 100 via FloRacing.com
Justin Fiedler of DIRTRACKR shared his thoughts in a recent upload to YouTube. He said, “I do think this is a team that could be in play for a chassis change. SSI was a Longhorn team with [Ricky Thornton Jr.] and O’Neal spent the rest of the season in Longhorns after going through various teams after leaving Rocket.”
He added, “But I’ve heard a few rumblings about this one and O’Neal has had significant success in Rockets in his career. A move here would not shock me.”
Fiedler is not the only one to hear rumblings, super late model insider Racin’ Jason informed Stock Car Report that he also heard that SSI Motorsports was looking to switch to Rockets from Longhorn.
As mentioned in the video, O’Neal did recently share a year-ending recap post to Facebook. And interestingly enough in that post he noted he “made friends for a lifetime” with “the whole entire Rumley family” who was able to provide him a ride shortly after he left Rocket1 Racing.
O’Neal wrote, “Made a tough decision this past March to walk away from the #1 ride in the country. We were very successful, but sometimes big checks and money isn’t everything. Walked away with no ‘what’s next’ plans.”
“Kevin Rumley called immediately when he heard the news. We were just racing together to have fun and keep my feet wet. Not really sure where it was going to lead. Thank you to the whole entire Rumley family for stepping up for us. We made friends for a lifetime,” he stated.
Hudson O’Neal on Facebook
From there, O’Neal detailed how, with the support of his family and various partners he was able to start his own team, “We completely flipped our whole life to make it work. We cleared land, poured concrete, moved our existing house barn into a race shop. It was a struggle. But with all our partners they made it all worth it.”
Next, he detailed how he merged his team with SSI in July, “In July, we were offered to merge with SSI. It was a no brainer for us. We were able to bring all our partners with us. We added in Dyno One, Big River Steel, West Side Tractor Sales, Sub-Surface of Indiana, Sunoco, and High Performance Lubricants to our amazing sponsors. To be close to home and back to where it all started is a blessing. The Burns’ family has been nothing short of supportive since the start of my career.”
Included in the post are multiple photos from the year including one with Rumley.
Hudson O’Neal on Facebook
O’Neal did find success in the Longhorn with multiple wins at SSI. He won at Eagle Raceway and Shelby County Speedway in the middle of July with Lucas Oil and followed that up with second place finishes at Clay County Fair Speedway and Davenport Speedway with the XR Super Series.
He’d nab feature wins at Eldora at the beginning of September in preliminary features for the World 100 and got a win with the Castrol FloRacing series at Brownstown at the end of September.
What do you make of this rumor?
NEXT: Rumor: Tim McCreadie Will Not Return To Rocket1 Racing For 2025 Season