Car owner Billy Hicks shared why his partnership and deal with Cory Hedgecock ended during the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series’ trip to Golden Isle Speedway this week.

Hicks announced that Hedgecock would pilot his #79 car for the 2026 season and would compete with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series back in November. In a post to Facebook, Hicks and his team shared, “We are proud to announce Cory Hedgecock will be driving the Billy Hicks owned #79 for the 2026 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series points and Rookie of the year.”

The team put together some solid runs at All-Tech Raceway to start the season. Hedgecock finished 12th, 8th, and 9th. However, when they moved to Ocala the results were not as good. He failed to make the show on both the 24th and 25th. He then finished 22nd on the 26th and 25th on the 28th. When the team got to Golden Isles it failed to make the show on Wednesday night.

By Thursday, it was announced that Hedgecock had departed the team and would race in Bruce Kane’s car. Bruce Kane posted on Facebook, “Our equipment was sitting between events down at Golden Isles, a fellow racer approached us and asked for an opportunity to keep his points going with the Lucas Oil series when he found himself out of a ride. Corey Hedgecock will be behind the wheel of the 15k for the rest of the week at golden Isles.”

As for why, the two split, Hicks informed FloRacing’s Kevin Kovac, “Things were just not working as smoothly as I thought it should and Cory didn’t think so either.”

“It just wasn’t gelling, and I knew I always gelled with Donald so I called him up to hook up and see what we can do again,” he added.

Kovac went on to report that while Hedgecock will close out the weekend with Bruce Kane Racing, he plans to continue to chase the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, but will race in “his family-owned team” when the tour heads to Ohio beginning with Atomic Speedway on March 27th.

Hicks plans to continue to compete with McIntosh, but it is unclear if they will continue to follow the Lucas Oil tour. Kovac reported that they “will determine their schedule after finishing the weekend together at Golden Isles.”

Before this shakeup, McIntosh told Stock Car Report that he was planning to compete in his family-owned 007 car at Volunteer Speedway for the Gauntlet at the Gap. He said, “I’m working on my 007 car right now. Getting ready to try and run The Gauntlet at The Gap. I’ve got a few people that are going to help me. And I’ll run here and there. As far as racing a lot, there’s not a lot in the plans at the moment.”

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