Benji Hicks had an up and down weekend at West Virginia Motor Speedway with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series for the Dirt Track World Championship and unfortunately it ended with some heartbreak as his herculean run through the field was spoiled with a flat tire with 11 laps left in the race.
Hicks started off the weekend with a strong qualifying performance. He qualified fifth in his group. That put him starting third in his heat. He advanced a single position to finish second behind only Devin Moran.
With a second place finish in the third heat, he started the Group A feature in sixth. He looked good throughout the feature and had made his way up to fourth and looked primed to advance to third past Tyler Carpenter. Unfortunately, as he dove underneath him in turn 1 he got connected and spun around. The spin sent him to the rear and he was only able to rally to a 14th place position.
His performance on Saturday earned him 160 points, the 27th highest, and a third place starting position in the third B-Main behind Kyle Hardy and Lincoln Smith. Hicks again showed speed as he quickly worked his way to second after Lincoln Smith slipped up the track in the opening turn. He would eventually lose the spot to Corey Miller on a restart in what was a caution-filled B-Main. However, he was able to reclaim it on a subsequent restart.
But he was far from safe in the position, Ryan Montgomery launched his attack with 6 laps to go and was able to take the position. Hicks attempted a crossover heading into turn 1, but ran out of space and ended up spinning in the middle of 1 and 2 with 5 to go. That would send Hicks to the rear of the field in 9th. He would quickly work his way to sixth before Montgomery got into the guardrail on the back stretch drawing another caution.
On the next restart, he drove to fourth with two laps to go and then was able to get Miller for third, but was unable to track down Hardy and Dave Hess Jr. He ended up finishing in third, one spot out of a transfer.
While he did not transfer into the feature from the B-Main, he did head to the Jim Dunn Memorial Non-Qualifier, where he started on the pole. He would lead the entire race and after winning elected to tag the rear of the feature instead of pocketing $3000.
“We come to race,” Hicks declared. “We got 100 laps. If we don’t go forwards any then we still get $2500 for making a lap so I’ll take a chance at losing $500 to see where we can stack up against these guys for 100 laps.”
Hicks started in the 28th and final position in the feature and methodically worked his way through the field to where with 21 laps left he had made his way up to sixth while battling with Zack Dohm, Jonathan Davenport, and Dan Ebert.
In the final quarter of the race he would slip back after a number of restarts, but was still in a very respectable ninth place when disaster struck with 11 laps left in the race. Hicks’ left rear gave out and his fantastic run was ended. He would get it changed and returned to the track, but ended up with a 22nd finish.
Hicks addressed the heartbreak in a post to Facebook following the race, “Starting 28th and raced our way up to 6th against some of the best in the business! We were having one heck of a run until a left rear flat on lap 90 of 100 forced us to pit. We got the tire changed, rejoined at the tail of the field, and finished out the race in P22.”
“We had the speed. We had the car. We just didn’t have the luck when it mattered most,” Hicks added. “It’s hard not to think about what could have been, but going from 28th to 6th in a field like that is something to be proud of. That’s racing. Sometimes it breaks your heart, but it always keeps you coming back for more.”
It is unclear when Hicks will be back in action, but it would not be a surprise if he showed up at Volunteer Speedway on Thursday, October 22nd for the FloRacing Night in America series race. Hicks has ran at Volunteer Speedway a number of times this year already and has had speed at the track. During the Gauntlet at the Gap event in April, he had a 2nd place finish on the Wednesday night portion. Then in July, he finished 4th with the Southern Nationals. Most recently he finished 13th with the Southern All Stars during the 3rd Annual Scott Bloomquist Memorial Scorcher.
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